Silence is Golden?

Silence is Golden by   Sarah Lutz

 I’m feeling tightness in my chest right now, I tell myself to focus. Everything will be alright. My mind swirls with thoughts, good and bad, both guilty and justifiable. I wish I could have found a parking space closer to the meeting spot, but maybe this long walk ahead of me this damp spring evening in Forest Park will give me time to think of the exact words I need to say. The perfect words to say, I tell myself, to make her realize why I am the way I am. Why I’ve been broken-hearted and hurt all of these years.

I have that crushing anxious feeling in my chest again that bubbles up to my throat making it hard for me to swallow. You know, that feeling I tell myself, every time I think of the multitude of hurtful words she has said to me over the years. My dad would say she had foot to mouth disease. But for the life of me I can’t understand. With her educational background, and how she was highly respected in the church, why I was treated the way I was.

It looks like I’ve got about a mile to walk to our meeting place. I need to walk around the zoo, down past the Muny and towards the History Museum.  We will meet at the boathouse. I notice lots of people out and about this chilly April night. Forest Park is always busy though. It’s like five times as big as Central Park in New York, I tell myself.

In my heart, I want to tell my mom I’m sorry I wasn’t the daughter she had wanted . That I feel like she’s never loved me like she did my brother, and that maybe I was too sensitive like she often told me. I want her to really love me like she had always loved my older brother. I’m not sure why she would constantly spend time with the teenage girls from the churches youth group but would never spend time with me.

Why whenever I got a haircut or had a typical teenage zit, she would shake her head and tell me, sarcastically it seemed at the time, how bad she felt that I had a sit. Or how it’s too bad I got such an awful haircut because she liked the old style. She had said things through the years, that made me sad, and looking back, I think no wonder I always looked at older women who had hired me in various jobs, like mother figures.

I think to myself, I’m almost to the Muny. I notice it’s a little breezy. Glad I brought my sweater I think. My mind wanders back to my childhood. It was actually a very good childhood; dance classes, snow skiing with my friends, braces, but during my middle school years and high school years, I don’t remember much about her or real family time, except for Sunday dinners at grandmas house. Why is that? Because she was never home. She was off spending time with church groups. With being a mentor for the youth group or church camp. 

There was a time I remember when we went shopping for a graduation dress. I picked out a couple I wanted to try on. She cast them aside, like me I thought, and put a dress of her choice in my hand to try on. Yep, as usual- I get her dress or none at all.

At that time, my dad actually filled both roles, Mom and Dad. He would take me to movies, lunches, or dinners. We talked about everything. He was great. Seriously great. But I really wanted a relationship with my mother. It was never going to be the relationship like that of my girlfriends and their mothers-laughing, going to lunches, getting nails done, going to movies or shopping.  I finally accepted that. The question was why or was it me?     

But now that I think about it, I remember one day watching my son playing with old metal tractors in my parents finished basement. I looked over at the table by the window. My mom was going over old slides, photos, and pointed out to me numerous diaries of my Grandmothers, her mom. She said that my grandmother, her mom had written quite a bit about her sister and brother. That her mother never liked her, like she did her sister or brother and that their relationship was strained and awkward. 

Yet in my grandmothers years towards the end, rather than put her in a nursing home, she finished off the basement like an apartment and took care of her mother before and after work daily. I was shocked when my mother told me that she was actually glad my grandmother had dementia because at least then she would forget that she didn’t like my mother. I thought this sad.

Then it hit me. How psychology plays a major role in people who often repeat relationships we have had with family member and you repeat this with your kids down the line. This is what I had heard or read at some point in my life. From what I remember reading, not sure really who said it or when, I just thought it made sense, that we often marry a person similar to a parent we had growing up. Yep, one of my old therapists also told me point blank during my breakdown in his office, that I basically had married my mother. Go figure…. A superficial relationship with a control freak, who when told to jump, I said, “ how high“ ?

I remember growing up, I was often told by my dad, to not upset my mother. Stay out of the kitchen when she’s cooking.  Silence is golden. Don’t make waves. My dad was like a broken record telling me these things, but I understood and did what I was told. No anger, or yelling, or complaining, nor telling people you are upset. Basically keep things bottled up. Yep, that’s me.

I see a bunch of people walking towards me, on the sidewalk--- think I’ll move over so they can pass. I always feel uncomfortable with large crowds. I start walking again….. I see lights over at the boathouse. I’m almost there. 

My thoughts go back to my mom. How I remember her always talking about how grandma always treated her sister or brother better than her, or they got to do things that she never did. There was a lot of obvious jealousy between my mother and her siblings. Then It occurred to me that my constant negative feelings toward her relationship with my brother the “Golden Child”, is just like her jealousy she had with her mother and her mothers’ relationship with her sister and brother. That their relationship was almost non-existent like my relationship with my mother. 

Yikes, the psychologists are right. People do in fact often repeat their childhood relationships with their parents, down the road with their own husbands and children. The said thing is, that again the one thing I never wanted to do, was repeat it with my own daughter and son. Yet I was doing it with them, like I was taught without even noticing. I was going thought the actions. 

I then notice that I'm getting close. I think another block of walking and I will finally be at the boathouse.

My thoughts go back to families issues. Specifically the one I've always had with my mother. I try to be positive, like dad always said, and think of all the pros, now that the cons were out of the way. 

Yes, my mom had done many good things for me, when probably most mothers would not have such as: helping me out and staying with my daughter for a good month when I was in Russia adopting my son, attending and taking notes for me for all five of my college classes when I was home on the couch recovering from a hysterectomy, helping me with the kids when I had a minor breakdown when I was taking statistics when I went back to college while going through my divorce. 

Yes, it’s true, even though she had a hard time actually being genuine and loving like a mother, that I had fixated in my mind should be, she had shown love in a different way that she could handle and cope with. This is possibly the only way she could cope with me.   I always thought something was wrong with me that I wasn’t able to be loved. But now when I think about it, she did love or care about me, it was just on her terms or way that she was able to show it. 

My mom actually graduated college with degrees in family communication and religious studies. With all that knowledge, she must have come to that same conclusion right? That her relationship with me was similar to her relationship with her own mother right?

I’m being waved too. Looks like she’s here. I walk over and look deep into my brother’s sad eyes and he hands me the box. Looks like I need to work on my relationship with my brother, I think to myself, before it’s too late.  At this point in our lives, he probably has me figured out already with the help of his psychology degree.

As I begin the walk back through the park to my car, thoughts swirl in my mind, My anger and jealousy towards my brother because he always had the relationship with my mother that I couldn’t have, was never his fault”. I must start over.    Silence is not always golden.