First, let me just get this out of the way: I am 53 years old and I still call my mother Mommy. I am pretty sure it is too late to do anything about that, so please don’t write to suggest that it is high time I start calling her Mom. If I am in public, I will sometimes call her Elaine, but in private, it is Mommy and that is where we are going to leave it. She is 80 years old, active, trim and healthy, and called her own mother Mommy until the age of 102. It is an understatement to say that my mother likes things a certain way; I have to choose my battles.
The night before flying down to meet her in Florida, I popped in for a therapy sesh to examine my trepidation about the trip. I was leaving my husband and youngest son at home for three days in order to see my eldest son, Abe, who had been in Florida for months with a theatrical production. When my mother had asked me what she could get my Abe for Hannukah, I said that all he seemed to want were hugs from family. Before I had time to consider what I was saying, I heard myself pitching the idea of meeting her down there. Abe and I spoke or texted just about every day but we hadn’t seen each other in several months, not since the whole family had made a 10 hour long drive to catch his last performance, on his 25th birthday, in Ohio. As I rose at the end of the hour and buttoned my coat, Dr. Smith said “Make sure you set boundaries with your mother, Laurilye; remember that you’ve done it before.” I knew Dr. Smith was referencing the fact that this time, I had refused to drive 5 hours north to New York just to fly with Elaine to Florida, which I had regretted doing in the past, right after my father died.
In the six years since, moved by compassion and a deep sense of filial duty, I had struggled mightily with saying no to my mother. Now, I found myself in the hotel elevator with her, faced with a juicy opportunity to set boundaries. “What are you wearing under that dress, Laurilye?” she scolded, as the doors slid closed, looking pointedly toward my left hip.
“Underpants.” I replied, uncomfortably. I cannot remember the last time I used the word underpants, but since I had suddenly regressed to the age of five, it seemed appropriate.
As we landed softly in the lobby, she said,
“Well, I don’t know what you brought with you, but you’d better go put on something…like a pair of pantyhose…because right now, it looks like you’ve got nothing on under there. Go back upstairs and I’ll wait for you down here.”
Speechless, I stood in the elevator as Elaine exited to the lobby, and pressed the button marked 2.
Writing this, it makes me laugh to imagine going back in time by two days and channeling Beyonce, who even in her Destiny’s Child stage was way beyond me…
“Mommy” I would sing, sassily snapping my fingers, and striking a pose in the elevator. “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly, ’cause my body’s too bootyli-ciou-u-u-us for you!”
Instead, I messaged Abe as I ascended once more to the second floor, continuing a thread we had begun a few minutes earlier, when he had texted to say we could come and pick him up:
“We were in the elevator coming down and my mother asked me to go back upstairs and put on pantyhose because it looks like I’m not wearing underwear under my dress so she’s in the lobby waiting for me to put on decent undergarments I just don’t believe this is happening to me.”
Abe: Wow.
“She’s really not comfortable with people knowing I have a body made of flesh. My new therapist is going to be very disappointed in me.”
Abe: 😦
“I’m really upset with myself for having agreed to go back upstairs and add a layer of clothing to my outfit I’m really unhappy. Why does she still need to control my body”
Abe: I’m really sorry mom. You can choose not to and confront her about it.
I knelt by the bureau and considered the black tights I had brought to travel in the next day as I headed back North, a fury rose up in me, and with it, a bit of strength. I typed “I’m gonna go back down and tell her not to look at my butt. I’m wearing underpants and I have nothing to apologize for.”
Abe: Great. proud of you. And I’m gonna give you a big hug.
I felt so grateful for my son, glad I was not alone in facing this momentary challenge.
I texted him “I have a round wiggly jiggly butt because that’s how my body is made.”
Probably more about my butt than Abe needed to know, but my affirmation practice craved a witness; it felt more powerful to share these words of self acceptance rather than just think them in my head.
I left the hotel room a second time, pressed the call button a second time and stepped inside, this time joining two older women I recognized from earlier in the day; Elaine and I had followed them back to the hotel from a breakfast place nearby. One of them, whom my mother had described as “too fat to live much longer” offered that she loved the pale lilac color of my maxi dress, and the other one echoed the sentiment. I confided that it was the reason I had chosen it, as it was precisely the color I wish I could get my hair to be, sharing that “whenever I tint it purple, it passes by this shade much too fast as it fades back to silver.”
“The struggle is real”, said her slimmer companion, with a smile. In these ladies’ company, for a brief moment, I felt like a normal person for a moment; I almost felt happy.
When I entered the lobby, Elaine was standing poised at the reception counter, waiting for me to walk past her towards the door, but I refused. “Nope, you don’t get to examine me,” I said, gesturing for her to walk ahead. She started moving toward the door, slowly, as if she thought I would forget my desire to avoid her gaze and just naturally overtake her with my usual long, swift stride. But I was fully committed to depriving her of a chance to reassess my ass. It was my way of simultaneously rebelling while avoiding direct confrontation.
On the way to the car, I said quietly, yet loud enough for her to hear “I wish you’d heard the compliments I just got in the elevator.” And we drove the quarter of a mile to get Abe, talking about the weather (colder than she’d like) and my (amazing) sense of direction.
Gilman Girls 