J came home to visit for a weekend recently and it had over a year since the last time she did. We both took Monday off to hang out. This is the first time she is home a working woman living independently in her own apartment. She took me out to brunch and we talked for hours. As J has achieved degrees of freedom through her teens and now as as an adult, our relationship has ebbed and flowed. Sometimes she felt distant and mentally lost to me. At other times, it like I was her last and only anchor. Rarely was it then even-keeled place in between. This visit, for the first time in a long while, I experienced that fine balance. We were like two friends who go way back, understand each other and make each other laugh. It takes me constant work to grow alongside her, adapt to the evolving reality of J and keep pace with change.
It is a lot of work and all to easy to slide into what was familiar and comfortable for the majority of my motherhood - treating her like a child. My mother simply did not do the work I am doing every day. Our relationship has a set point somewhere in my 20s I think. She must have felt like her work is done and there is nothing new to learn and adapt to. We have almost nothing in common today and our conversations are very formulaic. I wonder if comes an elastic limit in a person's life where they simply cannot keep up anymore - if mine might come in a few years. The thought is scary and keeps me fighting to stay relevant, not become a stranger to my own child.
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