snags

A few days ago I was in a great mood, looking forward to this long holiday weekend.  Had I spent the entire five days off by myself during the day and with friends in the evening, I would be having an ecstatically good time.  Instead, my mother is staying with me, and her visit, to say the least, has been a challenge, so the weekend has been dampened a bit.  I was apprehensive about her coming, and rightly so, but felt I owed her this one visit a year.  It’s ironic that my holidays would be more enjoyable without family!

It’s funny, isn’t it, how so many of us long to escape our nuclear families and our often-stifling suburban backgrounds only to rush ourselves right back into the same situations as adults?  Maybe we give ourselves a few years of fun in college and after, but then we start feeling like it’s time to return to the nuclear fold.  My ambivalence is, I’m sure, another reason I am still flying solo, as well as the fact that it’s taken me longer than others, perhaps, to emotionally recover and strengthen.

I won’t allow myself to spend too much time in self-pity, but I do feel sad that, as a single woman, I don’t come from the type of family that provides emotional succor.  I realize, however, that my situation is hardly unique.

Let’s just say these links have been helping me cope:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2011/10/an-examination-of-emotional-manipulation.html

http://ronaejull.com/2011/02/08/when-you-cant-stand-your-mother/

And although I’m not Asian, this one too:

http://chinspirations.com/mhsourcepage/dealing-with-manipulation-guilt-and-self-pity