My mother is an habitual romantic. I use the word "habitual" rather than "hopeless" because it somehow fits better. She has been married, and divorced, three times. She is now with a man that she has known since high school who lives across the country and she only sees him about one week a month. She fell in love with Pappy many moons ago and, it seems, the only time they have not been together was when one or the other was married. Yet, one time my mother asked Pappy why he never tells her he loves her. His response was startling: "Because any time a man says he loves you, you get rid of him." I mention this because it is the only way to sum up my mother without an incredibly detailed biography. And to understand my mother is to understand me. You see, much to my dismay, I have taken on many of my mother's characteristics. Especially in regard to relationships. I don't feel like I've inherited her constant need for attention and companionship. I don't feel like I need to be with a man in order to feel valid as a woman. I do, however, think that I choose men that are totally unavailable in order to avoid a commitment. Or perhaps it's in order to avoid being vulnerable. Either way, it's a little bit insane.
One thing that my mother inadvertently taught me is that men don't stick around. My bio-father was an abusive alcoholic and my mother left him when I was a wee little one. I never saw him again. Then she met the man that I call my Father, they lived together for about 5 years before they were married. When I was in High School, they divorced, and I haven't seen him since I was 18. My mother's third husband told her, on their first anniversary, that he was no longer in love with her. There was never any talk, on my mother's part, that men are all evil and they will all leave you and break your heart. On the contrary, my mother still loves love. She never told me to be careful with my heart or to be prepared for the other shoe to drop. She is the eternal optimist when it comes to matters of the heart. Some would call it foolish. I don't know what I would call it. As a result, I grew up thinking that every boy I liked would marry me one day. When I was 16 I fell in love with a boy and he did, indeed, break my heart. My mother never warned me, in fact when I told her that I had lost my virginity to this boy, her response was, "I'm going to have a bowl of cereal." After she got her cereal, she asked me a series of questions: "Why did you feel like you wanted to have sex with him?" "Were you careful?" "Was he nice to you?" to which I replied: "Because I love him." She was concerned that I had felt pressured into it, when in reality he was a perfect gentleman about the whole thing, regular after-school special material.
Several months later, he and I broke up and my world collapsed around me. My mother never told me that there would be such horrible, horrible pain. Just as my mother has always done, I picked myself up off the bathroom floor and got back out there. Now, a 17 year old girl should never be "out there," she should be out with friends or at home or at the football game watching her boyfriend play (which is how I spent so many Friday nights), but she should not be "out there" drinking and playing truth or dare with sailors that she just met. Especially, she should not move in with one of those sailors after only a month of dating, half of which time he was still engaged to someone else. Ever the optimist, I made excuses and rationalizations for why everything was going to work out perfectly. Eventually, I married that sailor and also divorced him. Since then, I have dated a series of complete losers that really had no future, yet I would try so hard to make it work. Because, in my world, everything will work if you make it work. Ten years after my crushing heartbreak, I am talking to my first love again. We see each other every once in a while. He refuses to date me again, even though he says that I am the only girl that he has ever loved, and it will probably stay that way. He recognizes that we are perfect for one another, but is a pathological bachelor/dater. In the most frustrating turn of events, his total fear of commitment was brought on by me, 10 years ago.
Today, I realized that somewhere in the last 10 years, I lost my optimistic outlook. I have apparently decided that I am only going to fall in love with men that I can't have. The question now is why? Is it because I don't really want to be in a relationship or is it because I am afraid to be in a relationship? The part of my soul that comes from my mother tells me that it must be that I'm afraid, because why would I not want to be in a relationship. The part of my soul that is all me tells me that there's nothing wrong with not wanting to be in a relationship. In a society where everyone is looking for their "better half," is it unacceptable to want to be alone? My best friend is married with 2 kids, and the other day her husband announced that they would start going to bed at 9:00 instead of 10:00, which leaves her with an hour less to get things done every day. My first response to this information was, "I am so glad to be single." Maybe there's really nothing wrong with me, maybe there's just something wrong with what's expected of me.
