Late night introspection…

She used to sit there at night. Feet curled beneath some worn afghan that she’d knitted years before that was covered in cat hair so much that you could barely tell what was the yarn anymore. She’d sit with her papers out in front of her, a bag of chips to the side and a container of pimento cheese. The cluttered end table lamp would be on and a circle of smoke would be trailing up it from her Tareton cigarette that was almost to the end. I’d find her there almost every night if I awoke and couldn’t sleep or needed to go to the bathroom. Same position. Every night until the wee hours of the morning. Grading her papers with some old rerun of Magnum PI or something on the t.v., which she wasn’t really watching, but liked it on for the noise. She always had a content look on her face. This was her version of morning coffee time really–her time of solitude and she liked it.

 

She and my father were polar opposites in almost every possible way. She a night owl, a genetic predisposition that she’d passed along to yours truly, and he was the earliest of early bird.  He was the optimist, the forgiver and the life of the party. She was a reluctant introvert at those parties, having been cajoled into going most every time. She would have been just as happy to stay home most nights with the cats and the sounds and comforts of her home around her. She was practical and judging, never forgetting someone who had slighted her.

 

I spent a good part of my childhood feeling like my mom was the smartest person in the world. It wasn’t until I reached my 20s that I saw her faults, which I suppose is quite normal. I grew up never wanting to disappoint her, but also hating the comparisons I’d get from kids and adults about the two of us. I wanted to be my own person. Not the daughter who looked just like her, or her daughter who was a good writer and destined to be an English teacher too.

 

Those comparisons would mold the career path I’d take later in life even, so they must have impacted me more than I realized. And, I wonder why that bothered me so? My mother is a good person, after all.

 

I’ve fought comparisons to the point that I’ve made myself the outsider in my family mostly. I often think, why have I done that? It isn’t as if my childhood was so terrible. I know I was loved. I was treated with warmth and kindness. I had a safe home and a mostly happy upbringing. They were not perfect people, but really whose parents are? Now that I’m a parent, I know for certain that mistakes are a part of the territory no matter how hard you try with your kids.

 

But, instead of embracing my roots much as my younger sister has, I’ve fought them, moving miles away from family and “home.” Marrying a boy nothing like the ones that I grew up with and nothing like either of my parents. Choosing to live in urban surroundings, loving the sight of the Houston skyline more than the cattle ranches that surrounded my hometown all those years ago.

 

 

She has the cats. We have a dog and a fish. She has a very untidy way of living, I tend to compulsively clean. My mother seems to react to life, rather than making her own path and deciding her own future. She assumes the worst and often gets it in return. She doesn’t put the energy into maintaining family and friends much, though she’d argue with that statement vehemently. And, yet, sometimes she shows great insight and wisdom that surprises me. She sometimes knows me better than I would care to admit. Yet, other times, she can be so off base that I want to shake her, quite honestly.

 

As I’ve grown up, I’ve tried to be a positive person on the outside, and hide the pessimist that lives within. I have told myself to go for the things I want, stand up for myself when someone is mean, and never let life run me but take control of it instead. But, even I have my insecurities.

 

Sometimes, I look in the mirror and realize some things that I do not want to see. I am an introvert, like her. While I like a good party and I do enjoy being social where she never has, I sometimes just crave being at home with a quilt over my legs. I miss having a cat by my side often. I question myself and am actually quite slobby by nature.  I often over-commit myself so much that I feel like life is running me and I’ve got no say in the matter.

 

I sit here most nights, unable to sleep with my laptop in front of me or a good book to read. I might as well be grading papers, really. It feels like it is my time to think, to just be. I am in my element after midnight, much as she always was.

 

I wonder if maybe I should stop fighting these things about myself that connect me with her, with them, with it all. Maybe I should just let go and just be for a change. And, I wonder after all these years of fighting it, who I will end up being in the end once I let this realization all soak in. And, where my life might take me….