LittleMissIndependent

I must have been about ten the first time I realized independence was a necessity.  I had been crying to my mother about something or another.  I did a lot of that in those days – I was disturbed even at a young age, a symptom of preadolescent depression.  I was screaming at no one in particular.  I looked at my mother, “DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!?!?!”  My poor mother had no idea what to say to her oldest and most difficult child.  Finally she sighed, “No. I don’t get it.  But I do love you.”  Tonight after a long, emotional, drawn out conversation with my parents, that evening came back to me. A decade later, they still don’t understand. But they say they love me still.
I think that evening must have been a pivotal one in the history of my life.  Her words cut me.  I sought, and still seek, my mother’s approval, a side effect of being one parent’s favorite but not the other’s.  She didn’t think I needed her as much as the little ones, what with this independence I had.  She worked a lot of night shifts.  It was around that time I must have accepted that I’d be misunderstood, because I stopped explaining.  I stopped sharing.  I learned how to deal with the curve balls life threw at me.  I dealt with my disease on my own. I never told my family.  I had beautiful friends who kept me from jumping off the edge. The things my parents never knew…  I had a rough time.
If only she had known what was coming. Of her four children, at least three of us have long battled symptoms of depression.  I myself still tend to silently eat my issues, and I’ve worked hard to overcome my own addictive tendencies.  My brother hasn’t had quite as much luck, and our mother loves us no matter what.  My sister’s depression, at it’s worst, manifested itself as an eating disorder.
My brother started getting bad just as I was getting better, Mama quit her job – it got her, too, and then it was my sister’s turn.  The two of them needed Mama most. I understood. I stepped aside.  I went off to university, and things were better for a while.
Suddenly, I had my mother back. As a friend, no less! I could not have been more thrilled.  My brother was still struggling.  Mama went back to work. I started my second year of university overseas.  My mother and I didn’t talk much, what with the time difference and her full time job and her full time son.  I came back. And every phone call was about someone else.  “Well, your friends never fought like hers do.” “How often did your classmates smoke weed?”  Our conversations were consumed with my siblings.  Eventually, she only rang when she had a problem.  Dad did the same. And now I’m back. And my sister is away at school.
But I’ve been on my own since I was ten.  My parents are sitting across the kitchen tables with questions about why am I so closed off, and why am I not trying harder to find a job? Why do I keep refusing help I haven’t asked for, what is wrong with me, why do I want to be by myself – I was never like this before?  On and on.  I can see the life they’re imagining for me in the reflection, and the stares filled with pity.  NOW THEY’RE WORRIED?! NOW THEY CARE?  Now, when I’ve finally got myself together and really don’t want their interference?  Oh, the irony!  I want to tell them that they’re not allowed to worry.  That they sound paranoid.  That they’re cutting me down again because they have no trust and no faith in me, and they’re not the ones I should have to prove wrong, anyway! They’re not listening.  I’m trying to explain without offending that I don’t do hugs, and that, quite frankly, they’ve missed out on 10 years of me, and that I’m not who I used to be.  That change is good and relevant, and important.  And I’ve only ever felt this misunderstood once before.  And the way they’re looking at me is why I keep hopes and dreams to myself.  How can they just dump the bucket all at once? A younger me would have been angry.  Angry because they don’t take me seriously, don’t respect me as an adult, don’t trust me to make my mistakes.  But I’m just tired and crying and glad for my secrets, filled with belief in myself, and laughing at how we got this way.