And I have for umm… like ever. It’s odd growing up with the feeling deep down that no matter what my mom is IT for me best friend wise. I have a sister (two to be exact) and we have a special relationship, a cousin who has been like a built in bff for me and my sister, my greatest gal pal from high school, mis hermanas from ASU, an assortment of great girl power givers throughout the past couple years who have been really great friends to me- but no one compares to my mom.
It was weird for me to see my friends in high school having the strenuous relationship with their moms where they fought, just weren’t ‘understood’, and had what could be seen as a typical high school daughter-mom relationship. Love/hate, no? I had some of that with my mom but we could do anything together and did. We had HMDP together, and shared feeling, thoughts, emotions, and it was really like each day I wasn’t growing up alone; I had my mom there with me. My quincenera was ours, my prom was ours, and my graduation was ours. Basically nothing could conquer the love I had for that woman or our bond- nothing until I went to college.
I had to leave for school- had to move out and finally get to be me. I have older siblings who caused some mayhem growing up and I just wanted to make things smooth in my child-parent relationship so I behaved- but I suppressed myself along the way. Freshman year came and I was free. In the time I was rejoicing in my freedom of no curfews, no judgment, and acting in the way I saw fit, thinking the way I had wanted to think for so long I never realized I left part of me behind. I left my mom behind on my quest for me. I didn’t notice she was gone but she so acutely felt the pain when I left.
She’ll describe the feeling of me moving out to Tempe as a feeling that part of her had died. Emptiness she couldn’t fathom and pain she never imagined. It’s a time I don’t like to think about because I know I made her feel that way she by shutting her out of what I was up to in my quest for me was what I wanted. I never did anything illegal, or bad or really had nothing to hide but when I had lived at home I had acted in the way a daughter should; I never gave my parents trouble, got good grades, and when college time came I saw it as the point where the Marisela that was acceptable to my parents and family was gone and I was going to be the Marisela I truly wanted to be. The part of me that had waited for me to move out now had free reign to be, I was just not going to let my mom in on the new me.
Long story short, with main emphasis on the interesting summer I had, I was back home and ready to be bff’s with my mom again. I had doubted her all these years of being a too traditional and closed-minded catholic immigrant from Mexico to see that no matter what I did she would love me unconditionally. She would love me not for being the daughter that was expected or appreciated but me, free- thinking, tattooed, pierced, and flawed me. I was resentful of the time I spent trying to be the ‘right kind’ of daughter they wanted but she was never mad at me for leaving or cutting her out. I can tell you know that we love each other now more than ever before and I’m sure codependency isn’t good but with her I have no problem with it.
I’m new to writing about myself and blogging and I know it’s hard to read/understand, and I sure do feel like I haven’t expressed myself well and this post is not organized nicely and sort of out of the blue but…
Today she wasn’t home when I got here. I waited and texted “I love you! Where are you?” I come to my phone hours later to see my really-not-so-technology-savvy mom had text me back “estoy con lala (I’m with lala (my grandma)) I love you too”
And it just hit me that she really does love me too…not the daughter who doesn’t sneak out, or go to parties, or have boyfriends she doesn’t like, (which I don’t do any of that- confusing writing? Yeah I think so) but me the daughter who has ‘grandma hobbies’, a potty mouth, too many points of interest, too many started projects and no finished ones. The daughter that bakes too many cookies, never cleans up messes, has clothes all over the floor, the one that laughs too hard, tries too hard not to cry. She loves the daughter that loves her mom more than she thought she could, more then she probably should, more than the sun, the moon, the birds in the sky, the water in the sea…
I just do…I love her…I do.
Muse: "United States of Eurasia"
