M is for Mother, as well as Mistakes.

So I’m just about two-thirds of my way through this study abroad experience, and I find myself thinking about my mother a lot. In three and a half months, I’ll be moving back home and all kinds of Interestingness will ensue as I try to readjust to living under my parent’s roof and dealing with their particular idiosyncrasies—as they, of course, must again deal with mine.

And I find myself getting annoyed quite a bit, to the point where I avoid speaking to them because I just know that I’ll either bite my tongue bloody keeping a lid on the sundry opinions, complaints, and accusations clamoring for release, or I will lose the valiant fight and say everything I want to say, lighting the fuse of my parents’ explosive (and hysterically melodramatic) tempers, which will, of course, lead to copious tears, recriminations, and guilt trips on my mother’s end, and confusion, condescension, and baiting on my father’s. And yelling, lots of yelling, from both of them.

I guess what annoys me the most about all this reflection is that I’m beginning to realize something that managed to elude me for nearly a quarter-decade: my mother makes terrible decisions.

Now, I’ve known ever since I was a child that my father was poisonous to my mental health, and that he was not to be trusted—either in his opinions of me or in his capacity to be a parent I could rely on practically or emotionally—but Mom? When did this happen? Mom was the one I ran to when Dad was putting on his villain act. It was all very black and white, and if Dad was the Nefarious Black Knight, Mom was the Benevolent Queen. She was to be trusted implicitly, because she loved me, and therefore she could not be wrong.

Which didn’t exactly jive with the family dynamic we had going on in my house. I saw my mom as a victim of forces outside of her control—namely, my dad. I was 12 when I began to understand that at least half of the chains binding her—and by extension, my sister and I—were of my mother’s own making.

But I guess I chose to ignore what that indicated. And, in truth, my mother’s marriage is only my business inasmuch as it affects me (And boy, has it affected me. I may need a shrink, but as a broke college student, I have to settle for a blog). And this post isn’t about those more weighty issues—those will stay locked up inside my head, thankyouverymuch—but about trivial issues, annoyances that in truth I shouldn’t dwell on, but that have recently caught my attention.

Mom makes bad decisions, I said. The thoughts have been idly churning in the corners of my mind, and I’ve lately begun to wonder if the best way to utilize my mother’s advice isn't to simply listen attentively to everything she says, and then firmly proceed to do the opposite.

Consider this: my mother, experienced world traveler that she is, insisted I bring a crapload of unnecessary stuff with me when I was preparing my packing list. She seemed to think that Paris was in the depths of the Amazonian jungle, or perhaps the North Pole. She wanted to buy me soap so that I could cart it to Paris along with the ten thousand other items weighing me down. I know that there’s that stereotype of the French not bathing, but this is the country that invented the triple-mill process.

As you can imagine, I was overloaded. She insisted I bring a carry-on that was, to my eye, much too large to get by bag check without being flagged. She pushed, of course. She used a favorite phrase of hers, one that quite frankly grates on my nerves so impressively I give myself headaches from clenching my jaw so tight: “No, no. Obey your mother.”

I don’t know about you, but hearing that makes me feel like some sort of dog. It is even more annoying in Spanish, though why that might be, I have no clue.

Of course, as I predicted, the ‘carry-on’ was too large, and I was forced to check it. Unexpectedly, I was not forced to pay the $50 extra-baggage fee, but that, of course, was a stroke of luck. Perhaps the agent took one look at my pale, exhausted face (I’d had Major Drama that day) and took pity on me. In any case, I didn’t have to pay the consequences of foolishly listening to my mother. I’ve pretty much vowed I never will again. From now on, any mistakes I make will be my own. That's a vow, too: Own Your Mistakes As Well As Your Victories.

I know this sounds like a just lot of complaining, but it isn’t, exactly. Not just (there is complaining, obviously, I can’t deny that). It’s really about how 5,550 miles of distance can bring things into focus. My mother is neither victim nor benevolent queen, she’s a person, one who obviously makes misjudgments and I’m a little disappointed in myself that it took me so long to realize, really really realize, that I can only depend on, and blame, myself. It's so easy to complain after the fact that Mom Made Me Do It. When I do that, then lament the poor results, is it really her fault? Or is it mine, for relinquishing responsibility and then crying like the little girl I still am when things turn out badly? No, I've decided. It is up to me. I’m finally beginning to grasp that.