The Ultimate Compliment

Someone told me today that I was so different from my mother. They don’t realize the power those words had for me or how they transformed the rest of my day. I could have floated away on a cloud of joy.

People who know my mother, especially people she considers “friends” (and I use that term loosely because I am not sure my mother has any people she considers actual friends), wonder what my mother thinks of all the things I am getting up to here in the Colonia. Sometimes I wonder if the reason she stopped calling me so much is that she’s getting her fill of gossip from her friends in the neighborhood.

Today, on my morning walk, my neighbor was telling me that others around the neighborhood think it’s great that I’ve gotten involved and that people generally think great things about me and the work I am doing. Then she was like, did your mother think you would get up to these kinds of things?

My mother expects me to be just like her; she can’t conceive what I would be into or be willing to do because she doesn’t consider that I exist outside of the construct of her mind. In her mind, I am only actualizing as a person if I am following the script of whatever she thinks my life should look like. So far, to date, most things that I like, she hates.

I doubt my mother thinks about what I would get up to on a daily basis because she wouldn’t do half the things I do anyway. She told me that they were surprised that I was so very different from my mother. Basically, they appreciate that I am not like my mother. In fact, I am the complete opposite. Apparently, this mystery group is pleased that I am so much more sociable.

In comparison, I am sure that would appear to be the case. I’ve reached the point in midlife where I could take or leave people as a whole. Actually, I would prefer to leave most people aside. Where my mother has transformed into a gargoyle of hate, and refuses to socialize with anyone, sharing her time like a dragon hoarding gold, I would appear to be a social butterfly in contrast.

My mother and I have always been very different, something that makes my mother angry. Some of her favorite phrases for me are: “hija irrespetuosa” and “hija malcriada”. Most people would be shocked to discover how much she actually abhors my existence, especially since in front of others she pretends otherwise and probably gives the impression that she is immensely proud of me. The truth is the complete opposite.

Unless you’re living out my mother’s fantasy life script, you are, in fact, less than. Not even a person in her eyes. You are just a waste. So it was my absolute joy to have been paid the ultimate compliment today. To be told that I am nothing like my mother, isn’t that a great thing?

Yes, it is. Thank you very much.