dear forgiveness, i saved a plate for you

05 Jan, 2025

after what happened the summer of 2023, i swore to never travel with my mother again.

recently, i told her that i planned to go to europe (for the first time ever!) with s, k, and e in june, maybe bring my grandmother¹ on a guided tour the year afterwards. god-willing, of course, that i've already reassuringly begun grad school and gotten what's left of my life together to a level deemed satisfactory by my parents: more savings set aside for my ira, perhaps a meek, mild-mannered christian boy who did his undergrad in computer engineering and will crumble easily when faced with an opinionated, overbearing mother-in-law. maybe he'll be decent at trimming the hedges or conversing in mandarin (or even a hobbyist ventriloquist), but he definitely has to be a boy. i know a non-negotiable when i see one.

my mother, the undisputed seven-time olympic champion of never letting things go (and all-around gold medalist in mental gymnastics), made a seemingly harmless remark about how she'd never been to europe before, either. her selfish daughter was going to spain with a gaggle of former college friends without sparing a second thought for her poor old mother back home, how very like her.

i'm not proud that i had to set that boundary, but it was a self-protective measure that i'd like to think has served both of us well in the 1.5 years since. i've solo-traveled to japan without her, she's gone skiing with family in colorado without me. last year, in the midst of a torrential downpour, i was stranded by the side of a flooded highway with a blown-out tire trying to figure out my insurance's emergency towing coverage while she hiked the grand canyon. we function smoothly when we're not forced together for extended periods of time, and like her mother and her mother's mother before her, she's raised me the only way she knows how: to be as fiercely self-sufficient as possible. which is fine and dandy, but when a need is denied over and over, you eventually lose the desire to even want what was needed to begin with.

but a summer holiday in the south of france isn't exactly a need, which leaves me treading water in the morally & emotionally gray deep end. i'd like to be the bigger person, to extend a proverbial olive branch in the form of an all-expenses-paid expedia.com booking, but at this stage in life, i really don't think i have it in me. it's easy to be kind and understanding when the same is reciprocated in equal (or greater) measure by a dear friend, or patiently hear out a client who really just needs an outlet for their anger in the face of legal inequity, but somehow, it all goes out the window when i'm faced with the woman who made me. in an instant, i'm reduced to the most primal of my survival instincts, and whereas i had no option but to stay and fight before (where else could i go, if not home?), adulthood has gifted me the opportunity of flight instead. by no means is it the ideal response, but it's objectively less harmful for all parties involved. it'll do, for now.

there's this quote from conflict is not abuse by sarah schulman that made me see my relationship with my mother more clearly for what it was, and put into words the sinking feeling i'd get in the pit of my stomach whenever i could tell a conversation was beginning to sour:

"people living in unrecovered trauma often behave in very similar ways to the people who traumatized them. over and over, i have seen traumatized people refuse to hear or engage with information that would alter their self-concepts, even in ways that could bring them more happiness and integrity...the undiscovered traumatized person's refusal is rooted in a panic that their fragile self cannot bear interrogation; that whatever is keeping them together is not flexible."

as i've gotten older, i've resigned myself to the fact that tenderness simply doesn't come easy to me, especially when i've forced myself to turn the other cheek so many times that the burn has faded to a dull throb. a huge, time-hardened eyesore of a callus that no amount of tiger balm (lol) or empty platitudes will soothe. but it doesn't mean i won't try, no matter how slowly change may come.

i'd like for us to stop slipping daggers under our tongues every time we speak, but old habits die hard. i want to become the kind of girl who can take her mother on a whirlwind vacation across the mediterranean, but right now, the best i can offer is a ride to her 11 am hair appointment in chinatown. it'll do, for now.

dear forgiveness, i saved a plate for you. quit milling around the yard and come inside².

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#daughterhood #travel