Revisionist History, a la Mom

I spent the afternoon with Mom today, as a prelude to her going out of town for a month to stay with my Auntie Sue. Sue is from my dad's side of the family, and consequently does not suck; unfortunately, she lives far enough away that I don't get to see her nearly often enough.



So I went out to Mom's, and we had lunch, and hung out for a while (which was weird, simply because usually when I go to Mom's she has some kind of work that needs to be done--drag the Christmas tree downstairs, move this heavy object, re-program the VCR--but today there was nothing to do) and then she drove me home.



I knew it was gonna be a goofy ride; everytime Mom gets ready to go on a trip, she gets a little bit morbid, and starts asking questions about what I'm going to do after she's dead. This was only unsettling the first couple of times, really; after that, you get used to it. She had asked me about what I planned to do with her house once she's gone, and I managed to come out sounding fairly noncommittal because I know the true answer wasn't the one she was looking for. She wants me to move out of my house and into hers when she's gone; that option has already been filed under No Chance In Hell. I love the house but I despise the neighborhood; it was responsible for many of my insecurities and it hasn't gotten any better since I left. It's the kind of place where people have those decorative geese on their front steps, the ones with little country dresses on them, and my neighbors are the kind of people who make sure that their geese are wearing the appropriate seasonal outfits at all times. (I remember once, not long after JP died, when I was still living at home, Firefly had come to visit and we plotted to run around the neighborhood in the middle of the night on a goose-stripping rampage, leaving a trail of nekkid geese in our wake. We never did it but it was a pleasant idea all the same.)



So Mom was already on her life-flashing-before-her trip even before we got in the car, which was why I was not at all surprised when she came out with this gem:



"If you hadn't majored in education, what would you have done?"



I thought about it for a minute. Finally I said "You know, asking me that NOW, when I already know what I know, I don't think I can give you a really valid answer. I mean, if I could go back in time and know everything I know now about myself...Put it this way: I'd have been a twelfth-year senior. I'd have taken every elective, every art class, graphic design, music, all kinds of stuff. As it was, I did the stripped-down version of college..."



"I never meant to make you feel like you had to do that," she said.



"No," I told her, "it wasn't you at all, it was ME. I wanted to get out as fast as possible. If I'd had my way, it wouldn't even have taken the full three-and-a-half years; I would have been out sooner if I could have gotten all my classes, but there were some courses you just couldn't get into if you weren't a senior."



"But what would you have done?" she asked.



"I don't know, really," I said. "But I'll tell you this: it probably would have been even WORSE, from your view."



"You would have been a hippie," she laughed.



"Pretty much, yeah."



This was the point at which things got revisionist.



"I always thought you should have been a writer," she said a little later in the conversation. "You really should. Why don't you set aside an hour every night and try to write?"



Aside from the almost irresistible urge to call bullshit on that--I know I've blogged about the influence of my family in my NOT becoming a writer--I was also entertained slightly by the mention of spending time writing. After all...what's this blog, if not my "hour every night" for writing?



"Yeah," I said. "I probably should. People tell me I'm pretty good..."



"I always said that," she said. "I mean, you could have gone into journalism or newscasting..."



"Yeah, I could have," I said--and it took an effort of will not to say it as snidely as I wanted to.



Back when I was a college freshman, the college radio station put out a flyer that said they were looking for newscasters and DJs. On a whim, I went in and auditioned, and a couple of days later I got a call that I'd been accepted for training as a newscaster. (I was so flabbergasted that I accused the person on the other end of the line of being a fake, calling me at the behest of one of my friends. But it was actually true.)



So I went in twice a week, and learned how they did things, and took pointers on writing brief, concise news stories for radio, and how to deliver them. They started everyone out on their low-frequency little training station, and then moved them up to the "real" station when they'd learned well enough.



I was at the point of being moved up to the real station when my mom gave me an ultimatum. She wasn't going to pay my phone bills, and she wasn't going to always be sending me money, and I needed to get myself a paying job.



Well, I had a boyfriend in Chicago who I couldn't go a day without talking to; and I had the typical financial requirements of a college freshman who'd known no life other than being completely pampered. You know--clothes, pizzas, nights out with friends--that sort of thing. But the radio station didn't pay anything, really, and I had a fairly heavy class load besides; there was no way I could keep my grades up AND work at the radio station AND get a job that paid as much as I needed to make.



So the radio station fell by the wayside, and I got a job at a grocery store.



Here's the thing that pisses me off, though: My mother has, since I was a very small child, complained about "not having enough money". This was the perennial excuse for why I couldn't do something, or why I couldn't have something; yet there was somehow always enough money for the things she thought I was SUPPOSED to want. There was always enough money for the things she wanted for herself. And that's fine--but she makes it a point to remind me that she could spend her money any way she chose, because she EARNED that money. Which she totally did not. She married my dad, who already owned his house free and clear, and for the first thirteen years of their marriage she never worked a day outside the house. And when he died, four years after that, he left her with the house, with all the savings, with no debts at all. So her idea of "not enough money" is very different from 99.999% of the rest of the human race; and her idea of "earned" is also very different.



I'm not saying she was obligated to pay for anything for me. But I also know that the things she DID pay for, she paid for out of a sense of obligation. Does that make sense?



The other thing that pisses me off:



There was a whole group of us who started at the radio station together. Of the people who started with me, one is now the producer of one of the most popular radio shows in Chicago, and the other is a reporter on WGN News. Every time I hear of them, I think That could have been me. If it hadn't been for the constant pressure to always be making money, that could have been me. That's a hard pill to swallow, you know?



I mentioned that to Mom today--about the two who are now semi-famous--and she said "Really? I didn't know that. Why did you ever give up the radio station, anyway?" she asked.



"Money," I said. And let it drop.



My mother loves me; I know that. I know she did the best she could, and tried to make the best decisions as far as what was good for me, and what would make me happy.



I just wish, maybe, that she would have asked me my opinion on the subject.