If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother

Something troubling has been happening to me, the closer to 30 I get. It's something I swore would never happen, but I've been noticing bits and pieces of it breaking through the cracks for a couple years now. I can hear it in the tinkling of my laughter, the warnings I give my friends about using their iPods while walking alone at night, and the nurturing way I treated my ex's daughter when she was young...even in the way I baby-talk my cat.

Just like she always told me I would someday, despite my vehement denials, well, I'm becoming my mother.


The first time I ever noticed this is in the photo below.

The way I'm standing, the expression I'm giving the camera...that's my mother, through and through. I remember staring at this photo, taken on New Years Eve three or four years back, and just being stunned. Before this, I had never considered myself to be anything at all like my mother. We were connected to each other through a mother/daughter bond, and because I was her "baby", but have always been like oil and water in all aspects of our personalities. We loved each other of course, but we struggled to get along.


It isn't just the way I look, of course. When it comes down to it, I "look" more like my dad than I do my mom, but the gestures and the personality that make me who I am are so obviously yet unconsciously mirrored after my mother's, that it freaks me out sometimes.

This isn't an inherently negative thing, mind you. My mother is beautiful, and I should be so lucky to look like her.

But Jesus, when the "oy" you elicit when you heave yourself off the couch is like having a hologram of your mother in the room with you, well it starts to get a little overwhelming. It is troubling, because it's a sure sign that I'm getting older. She always teases me about it, and I'd never admit how often I see her in myself. Nor does she know that when I go to a party, or interact with people and situations that make me nervous, I conjure her personality because she's just so damn good at playing the "confident woman" part. I know there are worse things to be than my mother...but man, I hate when she's right.

Thanks to Jonah Ray for letting me use his awesome photos (my new main blog photo was taken by him, as well).