Worry Warts

Last night's conversation with my mother stayed on my mind today...why is she so worried about my trip? After I got off the phone with her I ruminated...is her request to speak to the Norwegian a reasonable one for me being a 30 year old mother of a 10 year old, or is it another attempt at being in control? Would she treat me the same if I were male...if I were married...if I weren't the youngest child...if he were a woman? Would a man think this was reasonable? So I called my ex-husband. He'd experienced my parents' controlling nature of me when we were in our relationship. It infuriated him, and was big factor in the failure of our marriage. I thought that if anyone could offer me perspective with this situation, it would be him.

I presented all the facts to him and gave him the details of the agreement my mother and I had come to, then asked him if he thought it was reasonable. His reply? Considering that I'm going "halfway around the world to visit a country where no one in my family knows anyone and stay with a man I hardly know and no one in my family has had contact with...yes, it's reasonable." I told him of my concerns about having the Norwegian call my parents so they could talk to him and get his phone number and address after her behavior last fall while I was in New Zealand for my "boyfriend from college's" wedding (I traveled there with him, his family, and a half dozen of our mutual friends). While there, I'd promised my mother that I would turn my cell phone on each day for 30 minutes at 3 PM New Zealand time. Because I'd talked on the phone too much while I was on lay over in LA (and didn't bring my charger), my phone died after the first day. I didn't think much of it until the third night at the bachelor/bachelorette party in da club.

My "boyfriend from college" walks into the party and comes up to me and laughingly says, "Oh yeah, call your sister." I thought something was wrong! The next morning, I woke up early and called my sister from the hotel phone asking what was wrong (I assumed someone had died). When she told me that my mother had essentially freaked out because she couldn't reach me for two days, she convinced my sister to call me to "make sure I was okay"...(I was FINE until you interrupted my vacation for some triffling over-anxious mother shit!) The last thing I want is my mother calling the Norwegian every day to find out what I'm doing while I'm on vacation.

I asked my ex-husband if he would mind running interference for me. I asked him if he'd be comfortable with me giving him the phone number and address so that if there was an emergency with my son he could contact me. Also, if something happens with the rest of my family, they would have to get through him to get to me. He agreed.

I'm not going to tell my family that this is what I'm doing, or even tell them why I'm doing it. I'm operating on the old adage, "You teach people how to treat you." If they are going to learn to treat me like an adult, I'm going to have to learn to act like one, and responding to parental anxiety with behavior changes that don't feel natural to me isn't acting like an adult.

Epiphany: My family feeds off my own anxiety. If I'm worried, they'll worry. I won't be worried if I trust God. If I'm not worried and they are, that's between them and God.

Quote of the Week: Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you any where.