Role Reversals

I was talking to my mother recently about my current situation. I'm in a new city after having been laid off in Virginia. So, I packed it up and headed down I-85 a month and a half ago and now I'm finding my way. Finding a job, making new friends, dating possibilities, etc. We talk often now because she's worried. It's strange when you become an adult how the roles reverse. You end up comforting your parents and encouraging them to get through your adulthood. My father even told me to let him know if he's "hovering" which I thought was cute as he had taken somewhat of a hands off approach to me and my sister over the last several years until now. He was always a good father, never absent, always on time, but very much about himself and his own opinion. If you pay attention you notice the evolution of conversations with parents. They tell you things that maybe they wouldn't have told you when you were younger. Perhaps for the good of all parties. But one thing is very clear; my parents believe in me. In separate but equal ways. My mother knows me best just based on the fact that she is who raised me for the most part. My parents divorced when I was four years old so I don't remember ever living with my father as some of my memories as a child are blurred. For no reason really. I just have a bad memory. My sister remembers most of it-amazing to me. 85-90% of my growth and development I owe to my mother. My father is more formal. He knows the business side of me and he thinks I border on genius (which is far from true), but I let him believe that.

So when my mother made the following statement to me, "Aja, you've never done anything the easy way", I was at first taken aback. I wasn't sure if I should be offended or thank her for sharing that with me. She was speaking mainly about my choice to just get up and move, but after asking her, she meant as far as she could remember. I did a quick inventory on what I could remember as a child to now just to see if she was right. At least, to the degree that she knows about, she was right. The first thing that came to mind was when I was four, my sister was five and already in school and learning how to read. Well instead of waiting until it was my turn to go to school and let the teachers teach me how to read, I taught myself how to read. No way was my sister going to do what I couldn't do! English ended up being my best subject all through school. I thought of when I swore I was in love in high school with this guy named Tony, who I was forbidden from seeing, how I somehow snuck off with him and ended up in Stockton California, which was about a two hour drive from where we lived. Well, Tony decided he didn't want to drive me back to the city, so I got stranded up there and ended up in a foster home for the rest of the day because the cops thought I was a runaway. This is funny to me now, but traumatic at the time. Needless to say my mother was furious because she had to come get me. From that I learned what kind of relationships to not involve myself in. I had a few struggles in Virginia. I moved there when I was 17 for college, was terribly homesick during the first several weeks and had not made friends. My mother begged me to come home. I refused. I made some really good friends, enjoyed college and grew up. My first apartment was with a friend at the time, who ended up being a horrible roommate and we fell out in the worst way, so I wanted out. A friend and I moved my stuff, on foot, at midnight, in the rain from one unit to another, which was about a quarter mile each way. That was a very trying night, but we got it done and I learned to live alone.

There are numerous occasions like these, all choices I made, none easier than the one before. But each one gave me something I didn't have before. The physical move here was not easy. It was expensive, stressful, isolated, lonely, sometimes it's still lonely and I don't know where it's going. But 17 and homesick, moving on foot in the rain, in love with the wrong man, not waiting on someone to teach me what I could just teach myself are all traits I own. The willingness to do something impossible, not always waiting on someone to do for me what I can do for myself, knowing that sometimes being stubborn bares good fruit and realizing that once the hurt dies off, heart break will cause it to beat ten times stronger for "the one". My mother, I'm sure can pull up these moments up in her mind like a spinning Rolodex and some she would have liked to have shielded me from. When we talk now and there is that tone of worry lingering at the back of each of her statements, I'll continue to comfort her. It's my responsibility as a product of her and a product of my own decisions. I'll be sure she knows I've been bent to my limits, but I never broke. She'll be aware of the tears I've shed, but that my head was always to the sky. She'll be reassured that I don't just hope, I expect.