Did I call that or what?

[cosmolinguist]

My mom greeted me at the airport with "Oh Holly you know I don't like that!" and the kind of one-armed shoulder-squeeze that might be construed as a hug but which I knew meant she wanted to throttle me.

Fifteen hours after I'd left my house in Manchester, sleep-deprived, in huge amounts of pain from my sinus infection, having repeatedly believed I wasn't going to make it, wrung out by the anxiety and the total breakdown that I'm sure made me That Crazy Woman for the gate staff at Schipol's E19, I couldn't even figure out what it was she didn't like; I looked down at my clothes -- an old, faded dress, stained with something from my airplane dinner -- in confusion until I remembered: it was my hair.

All week I've been telling people the story of how I came back for my grandma's funeral when I was in college, in the middle of finals; a friend had a shouting match with one of her professors to rearrange hers so she could drive me. We got here in the middle of the night, a four-hour drive on slow, boring roads. And my mom greeted me with a wordless scream, because I dared to have bright red spiky hair. (When all my grandma's old-lady friends told me the next day how my grandma would have loved it, and other such approving "oh you crazy kids" type stuff, I could feel my mom seething besides me, the only one who thought it was such a bad thing.)

I tried telling her it could've been a lot worse -- I washed it until the green faded out, it's just bleached now. I also briefly thought about telling her "hey, at least I shaved my legs!" but wasn't quite tired and miserable enough for that to seem like a good idea.

Comments

[sfred]

Bah, I'm sorry.
*hug*

[cosmolinguist]

::hugs:: Thank you.

[magister]

Hi, Holly.

I don't know what to say to this. I'll settle for - you don't deserve to be treated like this. Remember you've got people who love you. I'm so sorry you've got to deal with this.

[cosmolinguist]

My mom's been through a lot -- a cancer scare, her sister dying, and now her dad, all in the last month -- which doesn't make this sort of thing any better, but does make it (and worse) expected and makes me feel even more than usual like I have to just grit my teeth and bite my tongue (if it's even possible for me to feel more like that than usual).

Sigh. Until last weekend, my plan had been to come see you lot today. That'd have been a bit more fun, I think :)

Thank you for your kind words. It helps a lot to be reminded, when I'm immersed in this stuff, that not all my life requires me to put up with being treated in such ways.

[magister]

Well, it'd be nice to see you whenever you can make it. Hugs and best wishes until then.

[cosmolinguist]

It'd be nice to see you too :) I'll see how crazy life is when I get back...with BICon and Prides and stuff, August is pretty damn busy already.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

My mom greeted me at the airport with "Oh Holly you know I don't like that!"

:( :( I'm not a big fan of the oddly colored hair either but, you know what? This is NOT about her!

Especially given that you flew out of the country on such short notice, and it's been a madhouse. :(

[cosmolinguist]

Well yeah. Still I have some sympathy for her, considering that some of her close family have even more difficulty with the "this is not all about you" idea. I haven't written about the circumstances of my grandpa's death but it was horrifically hard on my mom, her sisters, and their mom, and I feel like I'm just parachuting into the denouement of a tragedy, so I'm trying to cut them some slack.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you on this one.

And yet ... Rosie came home on Tuesday, needing a shower, yesterday's make up still on, and I wanted to clean her up so that she looked as lovely as I know she can!

So, what does that make me?

I think the instinct for us to groom our young can be quite strong, especially when we don't see them often. I'm happy for anybody else's children to do what they want - but mine are meant to look the way I want!

And now I've got to go and see my mother tomorrow, and even severely brain-damaged she will give me a miserable time about my weight ...

[cosmolinguist]

I know that instinct never goes away and doesn't even slow down much, if my family's anything to go by. Yesterday I wore a really cute lace shawl with my black dress, but it's one that sits off the shoulder, and not only was my mom picking at it to try to make it stay up on my shoulder, so was my grandpa's sister-in-law! Who didn't even miss a beat in talking to me, while she reached out to yank at my clothes.

I appreciate the good intentions of it -- my mom thinks I can look lovely too, but she's got a really specific idea of what that is, which I often fall short of -- but I just wish it hadn't been the first thing out of her mouth, however unrealistic that wish might be :)

I hope things go as well as they can in the visit with your mother.

[barakta]

I am lucky that my mum's mum does this sort of thing to and about my mum all the time, so my mum 90% of the time manages to restrain herself from doing it to her children (although sometimes she needs a bit of a whack with a cluebat not to trigger my very mentally ill older sister with seemingly harmless but are obviously distressing things).

Sorry you have that on top of exhausting fail travel and impossibly difficult sad bereavement times away from your UK home. I think sometimes grandparents can be useful to break the "tut tut" response cos they can take a step back and are genuinely amused at things we can do that they either couldn't or never thought to do.

Can't say anything more useful than *I* liked your hair because it was really very cool.

Thinking of you.

[cosmolinguist]

A ton of people said over the last two days that they love my hair -- one of my mom's cousins even told me (in Mom's earshot!) that she was in the minority for not liking it :) I tried hard not to laugh/be too smug at this, and I know she was still complaining about the hair to people when she thought I couldn't tell, so I guess we're even :)

Thanks for your deep and well-worded sympathy and you have been useful, so ner ;)