A Break

This weekend I took a much needed break from my whirl-wind dating schedule to take a road trip back to my hometown.

The Wednesday before my schedule Saturday morning departure, my aunt called me. She called for two reasons, one to provide a quick heads-up (something we often do for one another) and to ask a BIG favour.

The heads-up – my mother was going to be there for the weekend as well.

The BIG favour – She wanted me to drive her back to the airport since it is located in the city in which I reside.

To say that I was unhappy with both pieces of information is more than a wee bit of an understatement. I haven’t gone into too much detail about my mother and my lack of relationship with her but I knew it couldn’t be fully avoided.

Ok. My mother is a child hiding in a 50 something body. She is a whinny, easily influenced, victim. There is always – A- L-W-A-Y-S – drama in her life. Yet amazingly it is never her fault. At the best of times I want to scream at her. At the worst of times, well, let’s just say none of it is good.

I hang up the phone on Wednesday night wondering if there is anything I can do to get out of this nightmare weekend. I quickly realize that it is beyond my control and I am just going to have to go and suck it up.

So I do. I go. Take one for the preverbal family team. At one point, I actually went for an extra run just to get away from them all for 40 minuets. Have I ever shared with you my distain for the running? Apparently it is not as much as my distain for my mother.

My hometown is approximately 250 km away from where I currently live. The way I drive it takes about two hours. Well on this particular return trip the traffic was heavy and it was raining cats and dogs. My usual two hour trip turned into a four hour drive from hell. By the third hour of capture, my mother's mere existence in the same space as mine with killing me and it was all I could do from not opening the passenger door and rolling her right on out!

Four hours and fifteen minuets later we reach the airport. That god the kiss and fly is crazy busy and I double park, pop the trunk and give her an awkward hug before jumping back in the car.

So is there a point to this story?

I’m not really sure. What I know is that I am a 30 year old woman who no relationship with either of her parents. I am sure that has shaped me in ways that I have yet to understand. I these two people and their lack of a role in my life have played a big part in shaping who I am today – both the good and the bad.

My need for control, my lack of acceptance for anyone who I perceive as weak, even my in ability to committee to furniture, I am sure it all has something to do with them. On the flip side, it has made me strong, independent, and secure in my ability to take care of myself. I know that beyond a show of a doubt that I can take care of myself, I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

Some day, I just hope I can let someone else take care of me.