Unconditional love

As intermission wound down I returned to my seat and thought about what my mother had said the me the night before. It was less disturbing than thinking about the play or the Shakespeare action figure (book and quill included), among other things, for sale in the lobby. The plot wasn't a surprise to me (in fact, my mother had asked me last night how the play gelled with "my politics," and since this isn't a gender politics blog all I'll say here is, you have to see what's out there, especially when it's as deeply rooted as Shakespeare).

Anyway, this isn't the first time my mother has conveyed a message of, 'I love you but I don't think very highly of you.' I guess this--'your personality isn't the one I would have chosen for my daughter's, but I love you anyway'-- is what she meant by "unconditional love," which she used as a buzzword since I was a child, since before it had any meaning for me. And she would always say it in English, which should set off alarm bells (other words she likes to say in English: "outrageous," "intimidating," etc.).

Anyway, I remember my mother's amazement during my first year of high school that I decided to go to a conference even after the friends I'd planned on going with had canceled. It was a no-brainer; I was interested. Apparently, my mother had gotten the idea that I was very much a follower, without an independent to my name. She would later go on to her friends about how shocked she was that I decided to go through with it and what a departure this was from my past behavior. Which brings back another childhood memory, this one from back in elementary school. I wanted to go somewhere with my friends... I don't remember the exact situation, but it was something like her asking why I wanted to go to a certain movie and my saying, 'because my friends are going.' The next thing I new, she had launched into an angry lecture about how I was too susceptible to peer pressure and she was really worried about me-- would I be able to say no to drugs, being this susceptible to the influence of my peers?

And now I smile thinking about it in this context, because that is so mom: taking something minor and very normal (imagine, a small child or teenager being influenced in how she spends her free time by her friends) and turning it into a major and somewhat negative diagnosis of my personality. I'm not even going to get into how it's a wonder with the hen-pecking that I do have an independent thought. The curtain came up and I let it go until it came time to blog.