I'm going home for a visit soon, for the first time in a while. Part of me is really looking forward to it--I miss my home, and the wide-open spaces, and the grass and trees and fresh air. I miss the friendliness of my home community, where I grew up and spent my formative years. As tiny as it is (there aren't exactly that many Jews in Montana, you know), I really love how all of the families are so welcoming and accepting, of both each other and newcomers. There's a closeness there that I don't feel in a lot of larger communities that I've been in, and I miss it when I'm away.
Still...there are drawbacks. If it was all rosy and perfect, I'd be living there--my parents would surely let me live at home for free, and I wouldn't be wearing myself into the ground working at a job that I thoroughly dislike just to be able to pay for basic necessities. First of all, not only is there nothing to do, there's no one to do nothing WITH. It is far more important to me to have friends around than to have something to do. Even in the biggest of cities there is never anything to do, but at least there are other people around so that you have friends to hang out with and complain together that there's nothing to do. I don't have friends in Montana, I never really had friends in Montana, and even if I wanted to have friends in Montana, there really isn't anyone around to befriend. Even Sibs aren't around for company--they're all away at school, and our schedules rarely coincide such that we can all be home at the same time together.
But really, that's a side issue. I've dealt with boredom before, and if nothing else, I can spend a lot of time on the phone and online. Anyhow, I won't be there for very long, so there probably won't be any time to get bored anyway.
No, really what I'm less excited about is what I'm not-so-excited about every time I go home: The Parents. Or, more specifically, The Mother. Pa and I get along pretty well, and in general I can talk to him about more stuff than I can with my mother. He's pretty easygoing, and he generally understands my various frustrations with Ma. Ma, on the other hand...yeah. Our relationship (or lack thereof) has gone through varying degrees of healthiness and happiness (I repeat, or lack thereof). Sometimes there's a truce, sometimes it's actually pretty decent, and sometimes it's just downright awful. The problem is, I never know from one visit to the next how it's going to be, and I always get this sense of dread before I see them, wondering if it's going to go well, and when I leave I'll still be in one piece emotionally, or if I'll leave and be a total basket case, having lost whatever tenuous grip on happiness and sanity that I had before I came.
Of late, thank G-d, my trips have been fairly infrequent and kept short when they did occur; perhaps, for that reason, they have gone better than they did in the past. I haven't had a really bad trip home in a while, and for that I'm very thankful. But I'm always bothered by this niggling fear that maybe this time will be the time when that all goes down the drain.
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4 comments:
I'm from "Montana" too... though mine had Amish people riding through it ;)
At least till a few years ago when my family picked up and moved down to Florida on me...
There's something about being isolated from the larger community that can really make a trip home more something to dread than to look forward to. Even when your family is really welcoming (as I've been blessed to have), it's still not really "heimish." And it must be harder if your family leaves you feeling less good when you leave than when you arrive.
Does your mother get on your case about specific things (your appearance, love life, career, whatever, that she wants you to change? Or is it more that she grates on your nerves because you can't get along in general (just rub her/each other the wrong way?) In either case, does she look forward to your visits?
The truth is, when it's a short visit, the isolation isn't as bad, because it's so short that it doesn't have time to get to you. And there are things that I like about Montana, like I said--I'm just glad that I don't live there permanently, despite those things.
It's interesting--Ma doesn't get on my case about things like those you listed. It's more stuff like my personality that she wants me to change, to be the overall person she wishes that I was. She doesn't understand that a) that's not so easy, and b) that in large part, my personality manifests itself the way it does when I am home because of her. For instance, one time after we fought she wrote me an "apology letter" (which wasn't really an apology) in which she stated that she wished that I wasn't "so sad and angry all the time". I took issue with a few things in that statement. First of all, on that particular visit home (which was more lengthy) I was doing my DARNEDEST to be as cheerful and pleasant as possible. Second of all, "all the time"???? HUH???? Third, did it ever occur to her that maybe I wasn't always at my best at home because of certain environmental factors...namely, being in the same house as her?
We're also just really good at pushing each other's buttons. Stam.
What's weird is that I think she really does like having me home. It's her dream that someday I'll see the light and move back to Montana (with or without a husband and family in tow). She doesn't take it very well when I tell her (in the nicest way possible, of course) to "dream on".
well good luck with the trip and come over
Nice post. Good luck to you!
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