Prepare for rant.
I’m partly a terrible son, I partly feel justified in my ramblings…
1. She would always freeze bread and bagels immediately.
Just purchased fresh bagels? They go in the freezer. Bread from the grocery store? They go in the freezer. Chinese coconut bread? That goes in the freezer.
It would be super annoying because I would want to: make a sandwich, eat a bagel, eat something quick…but I would have to wait for it to thaw or defrost it in the microwave. The thing is…she would even put fresh bagels in the freezer immediately. Doesn’t that negate the purpose of a fresh bagel? Why inconvenience everyone, including herself, by doing something avoidable? I’ll never understand this one….
2. She wouldn’t follow the cooking instructions for recipes.
She wouldn’t put the right amount of salt or butter in Kraft dinner macoroni and cheese….and then would get mad that I would complain or not eat it. My reasoning is that I would eat it, if it were made properly. But she was trying to feed me “healthier” food…which I wouldn’t eat at all. It was very cyclical.
The mac and cheese would always be super lumpy (because there was no butter) and bland (because there was no salt).
Imagine going to McDonalds and instead of getting a Big Mac combo, they gave you
1. Slices of ham/turkey instead of a juicy burger
2. Fries that were unsalted
3. Water instead of a pop/soda.
or
Imagine asking for a rare or medium-rare steak, and having it come out well done because the chef thought “red meat is bad for you”.
Okay, in both these scenarios, it’s as if I’m ordering food from a service…which my mom was definitely not. I can see how I look like the terrible son for this one…but I gotta say, the whole thing would be avoided if she used the correct recipe that the manufacturer intended her to use. So I still blame this childhood rage on her…I see it as avoidable.
3. She would go through my trash that I would throw out and open my mail.
I would throw out a pencil because I didn’t like it…and would find it on my desk again after “trash day”. I would throw out paper that was dog-eared on the corners and not usable to me anymore, and I would find it back on my desk or in her room after trash day. She occasionally opened my mail until I got mad at her…and since that yelling/rage/white-hot-rage-blackout (i kid on the last one) incident, has asked me whenever she was going to open my mail (which would occur sometimes as I’ve moved out of my house but still get important mail sent to my parent’s house).
It felt like such an invasion of privacy…going through my garbage. Reading things I would throw away. I had to start bringing things to school/work to throw away…if I didn’t want her to read or re-use stuff. Ridiculous.
4. She was overly concerned about me given my age
At the age of 20+, she would call me after like, 11pm and ask when I was coming home or to be safe because “she saw on the news that violence is increasing”. Like, I get the calls when I’m 16. But at 21…when I’m in Uni…frig, it’s just embarrassing. Yes, another instance where I might be the terrible son, “she’s just looking out for you” you say. But when I’m the only one getting these calls from my parents out of my friends, it’s really lame. Sweet…but lame. There’s a lack of trust…and a curfew is stupid jokes. I understand people have curfews, especially girls….but I don’t play like that. I wanna do what I want, when I want.
5. She would always tell me to go to sleep.
“It’s late, you should sleep”. I would always get that, especially in the summer where I would sleep at like, in the 8am or 10am range (but she would tell me at like, 2am). The thing is, why the hell should it matter when I sleep? Especially in summer (when I had no responsibility)? Sleep is all relative, as long as I’m getting enough, it should be fine. Why not just…give me the option to do what I want regarding sleep. It’s not like it’s “bad” that I’m sleeping late, there are a lot of worse things I could do. It always used to piss me off so much. I’d be fine left alone, doing my thing at 1am or 3am or whatever…but she would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom and she would see that I’m awake, knock on my door and give me the: “You’re still awake? You should go to sleep”….and I’d just get pissed. Why say that? Who was it helping? I wasn’t going to do what she said and all it did was make me angry. Definitely something that could have/should have simply been avoided.
I’m insanely glad I moved out of my house when I did. My life with my parents effectively ended when I went off to Waterloo for school. I mean, I would still come back during work terms but it wasn’t the same. I was on a work schedule and the freedom Waterloo had provided me gave me enough confidence to simply refute the ridiculous house laws I’d grown accustomed to in my childhood and teenage years. After school finished, I worked for about a year before moving out of my parent’s house and in with Z, in the condo I live now. I can honestly say that I’m generally happier to be out of that house, out of the things that would bother me, out of that life. When I first got my license G2, the first thing I did was drop my parents off, go out into the street and just drive. Anywhere. And I did that for a good 30m to an hour. The freedom and power I felt was….incredible.
Moving out of my house gives me same feeling. The freedom to live on your own rules, the power to make decisions yourself. I mean, that’s what being an adult is. But to be honest, I don’t think I really felt the adultness until I moved out, at the age of 26. I always felt under their control. They provided my shelter and sometimes my food (which makes sense, as I had no steady income until 25).
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my parents, I’m glad they care about me as much as they do. I was far from the perfect son and I don’t believe they were the perfect parents…but they tried their best and so much of who I am today, the good parts – my work ethic, my morals, my sense of justice – is from them and the traits they gave me as a child. I was extremely lucky to have such loving parents and it really makes me feel….fortunate when I actually pay attention to the love and care they’ve given me.
I’m just saying that my mom would do things that would generally and consistently anger me for reasons I think could have been avoided. When you throw logic and reasoning into the things above, they seem pretty avoidable if she would have just…y’know, learned over time. But that was never my mother’s better traits. She provided the love, compassion, concern, and the artistic side. My father provided the intellect, the hard-working attitude, the morality and sense of justice.
My mother also provided me the OCD, the disrespect for privacy (read: nosey). My father provided me the temper and the social retardedness.
Damn, I’ve written for over an hour on an impulsive topic…I should really sleep. I’ll proof-read again tomorrow with a fresh set of eyes. I totally can see the rage taking over as I write, causing me to make careless errors….
/feel angry just writing thing…i thought i would feel relieved to get this off my chest but…no, i’m still just pretty damn pissed.