As a child growing up, I always aligned myself with my father more than my mother. Understand that I loved both of my parents dearly, and I still do. It was just a…thing for me. I didn’t see what I had in common with my mother. Why, you ask? My father was the logical thinker. Anything he did was based on a logical train of thought that led to a well thought out conclusion. Not so much with my mother. My mother was a creature of more than just habit. Passive aggressive by nature, she often let her emotions guide her thoughts, actions, and deeds.
I was telling a friend of mine just yesterday that growing up with parents that were significantly older than the average parental unit left me feeling older than I was for years. As a child growing up, I would often examine situations and scenarios with a certain air of adult thought processes that endeared me to my parents’ friends but alienated me from my peers. It is with that thought process that I would examine my mother’s behaviors and, subsequently, endear myself with my father. After all, despite how I felt about a situation, I knew how to tackle my emotions and learned how not to let said emotions affect my decision making process.
I don’t know when I evolved into my mother’s child.
Somewhere in my growth process, somewhere in the process of me “preparing for 30”, I have become my mother’s child. I have allowed my emotions on certain topics to make decisions for me – decisions that five years ago, I wouldn’t even have remotely considered. Your emotions, when they make decisions for you, are a dangerous thing. They have the power to make you ignore your moral compass…or to make impulsive decisions…or to even hold on to inappropriate thoughts and feelings. It was the very thing that I criticized my mother about constantly…the very thing that I have found myself, in recent years, doing.
I am my mother’s child. I am more of my mother’s child than I ever imagined. It is not something that I am proud of. Please do not misunderstand me. I LOVE my mother. And I am glad that I have aspects of her in me. Just not this aspect. Acting on emotions was never something that I ever wanted to do…and it’s something that I am working on fixing. Yes, I know…you can’t control how you feel…but I am damn sure gonna try.
