My mother is haunting me. It's awful rude of her considering she is still alive.
Though, perhaps she isn't to blame. Really it is me to blame. People often look at the haunted as victims. Though don't we usually create our own ghost?
My mother doesn't come across 4 states to put words in head. I only hear her words inside my head, because I'm saying them. Certain phrases or inflections. They are her's not mine, and yet out they come. So naturally, as if I had created them myself.
Usually it happens when I'm socializing with people I don't know well. Other times it can be over a simple discovery and her words will fumble out as a curse at a lost remote or unruly driver. You might think the distance has something to do with it. Perhaps it is indeed a haunting. A way of missing her.
You would be wrong. When I visit home it only gets worse. On a certain level I nearly become her. I make the same types of jokes, hec I make the same jokes. My gestures become hers. My ideas become hers. No its better to stay away. Remain a little myself.
or is it? Not all hauntings are bad. Truth be told I owe a lot of my success in public service to her. There is a lot to learn from a woman who can solider through tax season, doing other people's taxes, explaining the same complicated and boring laws over and over and over, and do it with a smile. Making her clients leave with a smile. A woman who can join a conversation and keep it going. Perhaps a little too long for some, but a skill nonetheless.
My father haunts me to, so it isn't a mystical mother daughter link. He is more silent. He controls my limbs and actions. He is the driving force between my stubbornness, my work ethic, my facial expressions. When he comes out of me, it's non-literal. An angry grunt or a funny chuckle. He sneaky and I don't even realize he's been there until I see him again in person. Then it is all clear. I've never gone away from them. No matter how many states I go, this is impossible. (Not that I wish to get away, just bringing up the physical issue of distance having no effect.)
I think we fool only ourselves in adolescence. We want so much to be our own person. Different from our parents. In order to do that, we must be able to recognize what our parents are. We subconsciously devour their habits and phrases and gestures. We act out against it. But as soon as our hormones relax, our body wants to take the easy way out. It doesn' t to think and then negate. It settles into what it has learned. What it has memorized to the very core. It reverts to our earliest instincts, when we were 2, a little sponge wanting to be just like them. We have only ourselves to blame and our parents to thank.
Though, perhaps she isn't to blame. Really it is me to blame. People often look at the haunted as victims. Though don't we usually create our own ghost?
My mother doesn't come across 4 states to put words in head. I only hear her words inside my head, because I'm saying them. Certain phrases or inflections. They are her's not mine, and yet out they come. So naturally, as if I had created them myself.
Usually it happens when I'm socializing with people I don't know well. Other times it can be over a simple discovery and her words will fumble out as a curse at a lost remote or unruly driver. You might think the distance has something to do with it. Perhaps it is indeed a haunting. A way of missing her.
You would be wrong. When I visit home it only gets worse. On a certain level I nearly become her. I make the same types of jokes, hec I make the same jokes. My gestures become hers. My ideas become hers. No its better to stay away. Remain a little myself.
or is it? Not all hauntings are bad. Truth be told I owe a lot of my success in public service to her. There is a lot to learn from a woman who can solider through tax season, doing other people's taxes, explaining the same complicated and boring laws over and over and over, and do it with a smile. Making her clients leave with a smile. A woman who can join a conversation and keep it going. Perhaps a little too long for some, but a skill nonetheless.
My father haunts me to, so it isn't a mystical mother daughter link. He is more silent. He controls my limbs and actions. He is the driving force between my stubbornness, my work ethic, my facial expressions. When he comes out of me, it's non-literal. An angry grunt or a funny chuckle. He sneaky and I don't even realize he's been there until I see him again in person. Then it is all clear. I've never gone away from them. No matter how many states I go, this is impossible. (Not that I wish to get away, just bringing up the physical issue of distance having no effect.)
I think we fool only ourselves in adolescence. We want so much to be our own person. Different from our parents. In order to do that, we must be able to recognize what our parents are. We subconsciously devour their habits and phrases and gestures. We act out against it. But as soon as our hormones relax, our body wants to take the easy way out. It doesn' t to think and then negate. It settles into what it has learned. What it has memorized to the very core. It reverts to our earliest instincts, when we were 2, a little sponge wanting to be just like them. We have only ourselves to blame and our parents to thank.
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