- I moved from Germany to Montana 20 years ago.
- Even though my mom said she wouldn't repeat her mother's mistakes, she was angry about my move.
Twenty years ago, I sat on the scratched wooden floor of my childhood bedroom in Germany, watching my mom straddle a giant black duffel bag while attempting to zip it up without ripping the cheap fabric. She was an expert packer, playing "Tetris" with my clothes, photo albums, cosmetics, and favorite books, unwilling to consider that maybe my entire life wouldn't fit into one bag tearing at the seams.
She was angry with me but directed her frustration at my unwieldy luggage with the broken, squeaky wheel.
Two decades before that moment, my mom had been cramming her own life into a different bag to move to California with my dad. Her mother was sick with cancer. She accused my mom of being selfish for wanting to live her own life, so my mother swore to never guilt-trip her future children for doing the same. Yet she couldn't hide her anger over me moving to Montana — or maybe it was grief.
I left her so I could set boundaries
I left for many reasons. I was young — and maybe not dumb but very naive. I was in love. I desperately wanted marriage and kids, a perfect little family. I needed someone to promise they were never going to leave me. I envisioned a different life from my volatile family of origin.
Growing up as a child of people with alcoholism, I lived in anxious confusion. Addiction made my mom unpredictable and unable to be a consistent, caring presence.
I learned to be hypervigilant, always monitoring her emotional states for signs of impending doom. I frantically tried to maintain our relationship at all costs, terrified she'd leave me. I strived to be a good girl, repress my own needs, and anticipate hers, believing this would make me more lovable and less likely to be abandoned.
Setting limits in healthy relationships with emotionally mature people is still uncomfortable for me, but with my mom, it felt impossible, as if even small, reasonable boundaries could risk the entire relationship.
She sulked when I told her 10 weeks was too long for a visit. She cried when I let the kids cut the Skype call short on Christmas because they wanted to go sledding. She was angry when I didn't implement her parenting advice. How could I ever set any boundaries in a situation where I was taking care of her while she was dying?
As the oldest daughter, I had to be the caretaker
Aside from dealing with alcoholism and depression, my mother eventually developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease when I was in high school, requiring oxygen around the clock. My parents were divorced, and I would have been the traditional caretaker choice as the oldest daughter.
I knew in my bones there was no way I'd be able to handle it. I was too scared to lose the relationship or be swallowed up in it. I knew I needed to leave the country when I did, and I would never return home. The geographic distance was the only way I knew how to maintain our relationship while protecting my own health and sanity.
My mother told me once I was the most important person in her life. That's not a beautiful sentiment but a crushing weight to bear for a child. I was on the phone with my mom when she spoke her last words. It was gut-wrenching. Her raspy breaths still haunt me sometimes, but I didn't regret my decision to leave.
Staying and taking care of her would have been hard. Leaving was hard, too. Sometimes, all we get to do is pick our hard.