It’s funny that when I take other people’s advice, like “lighten up” or “gotta find the silver linings” or “laughter is the best medicine” or “gotta laugh to keep from crying” or “don’t take everything so seriously”, the reaction I get is hardly ever what I would expect.  I don’t get the pat on the back that I’d think it would illicit.

For instance, my parents told me all my life growing up that I shouldn’t let other people’s opinions drag me down.  My dad especially.  Mostly my dad, actually.  Sometimes my mother, but rarely. My dad always would irritably bark at me, “Who cares what they think?! You shouldn’t care what they think!!” any time I seemed distressed about friends or teachers or boyfriends.  It always made me feel like I was spineless and weak.  He seemed to admire the gutsiness of anyone who defied conventions.  “Too sensitive” was a phrase that was tossed at me by almost everyone I knew back then.

My parents, in those days, were never particularly religious.  I should clarify, actually.  My MOTHER didn’t seem too religious then.  My father has always declared, “A pox on all their houses!”, having grown up in a Southern Baptist, small minded community with which he was from a fairly early age extremely disenchanted, to say the least.  In these later years, the closest to religion he has gotten has been to speculate that Gravity is God. So, I wasn’t baptized as an infant.  My parents took the stand that I could decide what religion I believed in when I became an adult.

So, I grow up.  I decide to finally express my somewhat passionate opinions on all sorts of things.  I stand up for what I believe. I call out people who seem to be expressing rather close-minded ideas.  I even decide to join the Jewish tribe.

What happens then?  A whole lot of tension between us. ESPECIALLY my mom.   It’s okay, it seems, to stand up against others; it’s okay to make my own decisions – I am a grown-ass woman now, right? It’s okay to do what I think is best.  Just as long as I am not going against any of THEIR beliefs and prejudices, of course.  Isn’t that how it is with parents and children?  I guess that’s how it will always be.  I’m trying not to be too strict on this front with my own, but I know now what parenthood is like, so I cannot really blame them.  I love my parents.  In my view, they are the best parents.  As all parents should ideally be to their children.

But, I digress….sort of.

Back to “lightening up”.

When I sheepishly told the story to my husband about what was up with all those toll violations, I could tell for about a second or three, that he was on the verge of laughing along with me.  But, he pulled himself together quickly, and said with an earnest expression, “It isn’t really funny”.  (Yeah. Duh. In reality, of course it isn’t. We aren’t made of money here.  In fact, things are a bit, shall we say, dire.  I won’t get into it).

A good friend of our family, someone who is really more like actual family, flew into town to visit us and stay with my parents the same day I straightened out my tags.  I went to pick her up from the airport as a favor to my parents, since the airport was much closer to me.  This friend can be just about as absent-minded as myself and I felt safe telling her what had happened; about what a huge boo-boo I had made.  We laughed and laughed, shaking our heads every time we crossed through those toll lanes after I had regaled her with my story and told her, “Don’t worry! I’ve got tags!…”

I tend to be way too much of an open book, way too honest, maybe even way too trusting with the ones closest to me.  Shit, sometimes even with complete strangers.  So, I risked telling my mother the same story when we arrived and all of us had settled onto the couch, the both of them sipping wine, because my mom has always laughed about the woman from Tennessee – it’s one of her favorite memories.  (Like I said in my last post, you really had to be there).  She really needs good laughs lately considering how hard she’s working and the whole situation with my dad’s cancer and worries about my husband and me (not to mention the whole state of our country, but I digress again).  I knew that she would want to chastise me a bit; she might shake her head in disappointment in me – I knew!  But, I thought, at least she could get some really good giggles in there too.  It would be worth it.

I could tell she didn’t want to laugh when I got to the “punchline”, if you will.  She really, really didn’t want to.  But, she finally did.  We had a few heady minutes of uncontrollable giggling, the three of us.  Oh good, I thought, we’re actually okay here.  She can find the humor in it! Relief.

Then she suddenly stopped, fixed me with a mother’s glare, and pursing her lips, spat out, “Christiane! When are you going to get your shit together?!? Seriously!!”

Then she proceeded to lecture me on what I needed to do to fix it, even though I already had.  I let her go on about marching “into the nearest EZTag store and straightening this all out in PERSON! That’s what you need to do!! Don’t mess with online stuff!! You need to DO THIS!! It really isn’t funny!!” She may as well have shouted “Grow up!!”.  (Thinking back, she may have.  I may have tried to block that part out.  But, if she didn’t shout it, she might as well….).

Our friend and I looked at each other across the room, lowered our eyes for a second, almost able to read each other’s minds about how I really shouldn’t have told her that story, and about the humiliation of your mother chastising you at the age of 52 like you were an errant 13 year old, and how, at the same time, you had to agree with her about acting like an adult, and about how that stung you so much inside……

I was just trying to lighten up.