As a kid, I would run while looking back. Something about it felt good: I was moving away from whoever was chasing me while seeing how close they were to catching me. Then, it turned into running from my emotions. Not wanting to process them made me act as if they didn’t exist, which impacted all of my relationships, from myself, my friends and a mother-daughter relationship. I still excelled in school, was a good daughter and showed up for my friends. However, life has a funny way of making you face yourself, especially when it feels uncomfortable. Here’s why I ran from myself and my relationship with my mom, and how life brought me right back.
Why I Ran From Myself
My mom, the oldest of six and a registered nurse, expected a lot of me in my youth, which was pretty on brand for Baby Boomers. Raised by the silent generation, Boomers like my mom struggled to describe and express their emotions, which left me feeling confused and overwhelmed. Expectations were at an all-time high. It wasn’t my responsibility to just excel for me, but I had to right the wrongs of generations before me by excelling in school, juggling extracurricular activities and being a great family mate.
I was always told that I could speak up, but several perimeters existed around that with respect and gratitude being at the top of the list. By the time that I got to high school, I was good at shrinking to meet the needs of people around me who couldn’t emote. I never wanted to be the reason for an argument, let alone find myself in one. I also began observing people around me that I love(d) and respect(ed) who struggled to communicate their feelings. And that’s when the silence began.
Why I Ran From My Mom
Making my best attempts in college, I continued to try to understand myself through navigating relationships with other people, not knowing I had to develop one with myself. I learned that my relationship with myself wasn’t based on how well I performed, how many T’s I crossed, and I’s that I dotted. This attention to detail would afford me several academic opportunities, leading to school acceptance and two degrees. It did not, however, make things easier with figuring out how and why I felt the way I did. Despite being an adult by this time, I still felt like a child in this mother-daughter relationship. Her voice was still louder, in my head, than my own and I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. I felt guilty for some of my first-time experiences and judged myself harsher than she ever had.
Whenever I went home, it was like I was that kid again, not knowing how to communicate what bothered me or how we could move forward. The pressure I felt as a kid to pursue perfection continued into my young adulthood, and I resented myself and my mom for it. It’s why I pursued higher education in another part of the state between 2008 and 2012, opted to live on-campus during grad school between 2013 and 2015, and moved back to the Bay Area in 2015. Still, life continued to happen, and I found myself on a career track that wasn’t for me. I had a 16-month stint in tech and an even shorter one in senior health communications. In need of a fresh start, I found myself right back where I started: on my parent’s doorstep.
Why Life Brought Me Right Back
I’d only planned to live at home for a year. The grace I felt I was never extended by my mother permeated how I treated myself, preventing me from being realistic about how long getting back on my feet would take. While living at home, I was reminded of my childhood wounds in this mother-daughter relationship. I recalled feeling silenced and “things running smoother” when I did so. I wasn’t yet ready to face myself or my relationship with my mom.
Up until that point, our relationship felt like this odd mix of encouragement and the pressure to continue to achieve. I lived at home from 2017 to 2020 and decided I would do whatever it took to fulfill my dream of becoming a Black woman hippie working in journalism with a budding social life and successful relationship. That all came to a screeching halt and eventually re-route as a result of the pandemic.
Isolation became a means of survival, and my dream felt even further away than it had already been. Still, I was grateful for the friends I’d gained who lived close by. They became my core community whenever I could leave the house. I had no idea when the safe distancing would end or when people would stop getting terribly sick so rapidly. The media’s broadcasting of this never-ending sickness and my desire to break free, in more ways than one, encouraged me to take a leap of faith. So, I did. I bought a one-way ticket to New York and moved my life across the country with hopes of building a career and figuring myself out.
Writer’s note: Stay tuned to find out the lessons I learned while moving every few years.