mothers' day

 In the short history of mothers’ days that I’ve celebrated/missed, the one that’s just passed a couple of days ago left me feeling really horrible by the time the day was over. I dreaded coming home and I locked myself in my room the moment I got back. I suppose it should be considered a missed one, since there really wasn’t any celebration, so to speak.

At age close-to-24, I’m not proud at all to be announcing that I got into a fight with my mum. I thought this is supposed to be the period in my life where I can start talking to her about everything under the sun – e.g. grown up issues, where daughters and mothers start spending more time together to bond.

Apparently, I thought wrong.

People oftentimes have the impression that I’m best pals with my mum, I’m not. On occasions where it seemed to be the case, let me tell you now that I tried very hard to make things resemble that. Each time I tried to narrow the gap between us, I would be met with much resistance/reluctance (can’t differentiate the 2 when it comes to my mum) before eventual relentance. Through my daily interaction with her over the years, I also came to the conclusion that my opinions don’t really matter very much to her and this has resulted in me craving for acknowledgment from others outside (I curb to display this openly though).

I tried to reflect on why things turned out this way.

Maybe it’s an Asian mum thing; our conservative society’s made her out to be uncomfortable in displaying affection as openly as I’d like her to. Or it could be an age/generation difference thing; I’m quite sure she didn’t try as hard as me to come closer to grandma when she was younger (not that grandma would have the time for her, she had 9 children in all) so she’s probably not very used to the idea of mother-daughter bonding. Am I expecting too much from her by hoping that she’d someday realize I could do with more motherly love? Or maybe, just maybe, we’ve been taking each other for granted despite the countless times I’ve told myself to always be thankful for all that I’ve been given in my life.

Of course, I know not if it’s one, a combination or none of the reasons provided above that’s led to the state of things today. The only certain thing I know for a fact is that I will forever be indebted to my mum, no matter how terrible or frosty things eventually turn out to be. I used to shed tears wishing we were closer after seeing how intimate cousins or friends were with their mothers, but after the most recent episode, I’m going to stop wishing for that to happen. It takes 2 hands to clap, maybe we are just not cut out for such intimacy.

Things are still pretty frosty at the moment; we’ve been avoiding each other like the plague at home and not more than 5 sentences have been spoken between the 2 of us since last Friday (she mentioned that I really shouldn’t speak to her anymore in her fit of anger and I’m taking it very seriously).

I feel sad thinking about how great things should/could’ve been many a time, but to be frank, I know it’s really not much of a real problem; at least not after watching a heart-wrenching video on some young cancer victims some nights back. There are definitely things more worthy of your time and attention than reading about me whining about how unloved I'm feeling. 

So, no more moping – I’ll start by focusing on the positive things in life and how to make both others and myself happier.