Another Realization

I was standing in the shower tonight when something occurred to me.



(Most of my best thoughts come in the shower. If I could be kept in captivity in a tiled enclosure, naked, under running water, I would probably be Aristotle.)



I bitch a lot about my mother, I know. But here's the thing...



My mother was probably a lot like me, when she was my age. I know she was unmarried; that was another six years in her future. In fact, she hadn't even met my father yet.



She worked; she travelled; she was a state archery champion and second in the nation at one point. She went bow-hunting with a bunch of men, which scandalized her family. Her siblings used to wonder if maybe she was a lesbian. I wonder sometimes if that had something to do with why she got married.



I wonder why she made a lot of the decisions she made, actually. I think somewhere around my age, she started to listen to all the people telling her that what she was doing wasn't what she should have been doing. Why aren't you married? Why don't you settle down? Who's going to take care of you in your old age? Never mind that what she was doing was actually making her HAPPY; everyone around her knew better than she did.



And she was always vulnerable to other people's opinions; the middle child, with a bully for an older sister, always questioning her every decision. She'd married late--but she'd married. Her youngest sister, the darling of the family, had married a very wealthy man--which didn't diminish her darling-ness any. That left my mom, the last unmarried girl in the family. Sneaking up on forty with no husband and no kids...



My mother let them make her decisions for her. She was scared of their opinion and scared of the picture they painted of her future; and because of that fear, she gave up on who she was. If she was a stranger, I'd say she sold out; since she's my mother, I'll be a little more merciful. The net result was the same.



I have spent most of my life trying not to be my mother. I have spent most of my life trying to be different not so much in beliefs--that came naturally--but in consciousness of the things that drive me. My mother--and she has admitted this--made some very big decisions in her life without a second thought. For the most part, I can identify my reasons for the choices I've made--if you can count "because I wanted to" as a reason, that is. (Sometimes that's been a very good reason.) I promised myself at the age of 21 that I was never going to be afraid of my mistakes; that I wasn't going to have regrets. For the most part I've succeeded.



But tonight I realized: It's entirely possible that I could fall into the same trap--letting other people's fears--or even my own fears--dictate my choices.



I don't think I'm willing to let that happen.