Life Goes On

Sydney LaSala

Even when I was a little girl, my mother never babied me. When I was seven, my best friend slammed my finger in her door. We ran over to my house to get my mom. She didn’t kiss my finger, or ask me if I was okay. She simply got the first aid kit and began bandaging me up. It hurt, but I didn’t cry. As she dabbed Neosporin over my bloody, broken fingernail, I bit my lower lip to prevent my eyes from becoming glossy. She never cried in front of me, so I shouldn’t cry in front of her.

I started horseback riding when I was five years old, mostly because I had seen how much my mother enjoyed it. It was the only hobby my sister, my mother, and I had in common and it brought us together every weekend. Sometimes I would stay at the barn all day just to watch other people ride. One time, I witnessed a little girl fall off during her riding lesson. Her mother rushed into the arena to cradle her as she cried. The girl wasn’t hurt, she was just scared. I remember thinking back to the first time I fell off, and how my mom stood outside of the arena, encouraging me to get back on.

When I was little, I would always worry about kidnappers. It probably stemmed from the uplifting stories my sister kindly shared with me. She said there was a man who went into children’s rooms with his three big dogs. One time, she whispered, a girl woke up to him sitting on her bed. She ran to her parents’ room but their door was locked so she yelled for them. They told her that she was just having a bad dream and told her to go back to bed. The man was just about to take her, but her parents walked out just in time.

“Mommy,” I whined while she tucked me in at night, “can you check and make sure there is no one under my bed?”

While she peeked under my bed, I clung to her Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that I slept with every night. Once, when my parents went on vacation, my grandma came over to watch my sister and me. She asked me if she could wear the sweatshirt because all of hers were in the wash. My eyes grew rounder as I said, “No you can’t. It smells like Mommy.”

“There’s no one under your bed,” Mommy assured me. “No one is going to take you, I promise.”

“Well yeah, Daddy would fight them because he’s really strong,” I responded.

“I’m really strong too, you know,” she said, almost offended that I didn’t think of her first.

My mother is the runt of the family. She stands at 5’2, five inches shorter than my sister and me. Next to my father, who is 6’2, she looks like a doll. Due to this, she always sticks out in family photos. In contrast to everyone else’s dark hair, her Barbie blonde fountains down to her angular shoulders that poke out of her skin, along with the rest of her bones. My sister and I always joke that she looks better than us in a bathing suit. Ever since I was a child, she has spent at least an hour a day on the treadmill or walking down our hill. She looks like she belongs on a beach in California with her perfect figure and constant natural tan. She refuses to let age get the best of her and fills her bathroom countertop with Olay anti-aging cream, even though she doesn’t need it.

When I was in middle school, she was very firm with my report cards. When I was in my awkward, pre-teen, no-one-understands-me phase, my middle school report cards were generally more than satisfactory. Almost all of my grades were A’s with a couple of B’s. But Mom was a pusher.

“They’re pretty good. Daddy and I are proud. But you can always do better.”

At first, I was surprised. How could she say that when my grades were nearly perfect?

“But Mom, Taylor gets B’s too,” I argued. I always dragged my sister into arguments when I was younger.

“Yes, she does. She can improve, as well.” She stunned me. My sister and I would roll our eyes together. It used to be us against her. We would call her crazy and neurotic. Her expectations were obviously too high.

This expectation carried over into our passion for horseback riding as well. She and my father bought me a horse of my own when I was twelve. When they bought him, he was young and required a lot of patience. Although five years have passed, he can still be frustrating. It is easy to give up, but she never allows me.

“How was your lesson?”

I threw my car keys on the table and found my mom stirring her Greek yogurt, her meal for the day. “Sucked,” I said, refusing to make eye contact so that she wouldn’t see my glassy eyes. “I don’t think I’m going to go to the show tomorrow.”

“Stunk,” she immediately corrected me. “Why was it so bad?”

I gave her a play by play of my horseback-riding lesson. I explained how badly my horse had acted and how frustrated I was. My horse show the next day would be horrific and I wouldn’t allow anyone to see me like that. It was always easy for me to talk to her about riding considering she rode as well.

“Well,” she sighed, “you can’t be mad at yourself or the horse. You haven’t ridden in a couple days. You know he’s always bad the first time back at work. It’s no one’s fault.”

“True,” I agreed finally, “but I think I’m still scratching tomorrow.”

“Oh no you’re not,” she announced, throwing her yogurt out. “You had a bad lesson. Life goes on.”

That was her favorite one liner: “Life goes on.”

“I get that but I still feel unprepared and I don’t want to go,” I quickly responded.

“I don’t care if you don’t want to go,” she snapped. “I already paid for it and it would be stupid not to. You’re going so you might as well get over it and go get your things ready for the morning.”

I started to disagree with her again but she cut me off. “Conversation over.”

In a fit of rage, I rushed up to my room. I didn’t understand how she could be so understanding one minute and so unsympathetic the next. But I set my alarm and got my clothes together, knowing she wouldn’t change her mind.

A couple weeks later, I was watching videos of the horse show that my mom uploaded to the computer. As I cringed at myself on camera, I listened to the conversation between my mother and grandmother.

“They look great,” my grandma commented. I could be falling off the horse and she would still be complimentary.

“It’s a miracle that she’s here right now. Her lesson was awful yesterday. I think she might have cried.” I flinched at this.

“Oh Nikki, why did you make her go if it was so bad?” I always admired my grandma for taking my side in arguments.

“She’s fine,” my mom simply said. A couple seconds later, I watched myself exit the arena with a first place ribbon and a smile. The videotape ended, probably because she came to give me water or take my jacket. Although she doesn’t speak much to me at shows, her presence is still vital. She doesn’t give me advice, that’s my trainer’s job. She doesn’t cheer loudly, that’s my friends’ job. She’s just there to be mom. And when she’s not there, I feel like I’m forgetting something. Did I leave my helmet at home? Did I remember to take the money that she left me? They are little things, but I still worry.

Even though she is tough, my mom isn’t very strict, and if there is one thing she loves, it is a party. She and my father go out at least once a weekend to dinner or to a family friend’s. And when they are not out, they bring the party to the house. They love watching football games, playing loud music by the pool, and filling their wine glasses to the very top.

I can recall my dad’s fiftieth birthday when I was fifteen. I looked out the window to find her and ten other guests dancing to ACDC with their glasses raised in the air. As I stepped foot outside, she made her way over to me.

“Pooh,” she said to me. She and my dad have called me Pooh Bear for as long as I can remember. I still don’t know the reasoning behind it. “What are you still doing awake?” She blinked her big blue eyes in concern.

“Mom, it’s 9:30,” I reminded her.

“Well, what are you doing? Don’t you have homework? Tomorrow is a school day. You should study. Did you floss? Make sure you brush your teeth good before bed.”

Even when my mother has had too much to drink, she never stops parenting. Although it usually annoys me, I admire it in a way. How she can turn on the parent switch so easily while inebriated is beyond me. I don’t know if she does it to try and hide the fact that she’s drunk, or because “parent mode” is her natural default. Either way, she loves to bark out orders when she can, a constant reminder that she’s still in charge, despite her alcohol intake.

In fact, being in charge is a favorite hobby of hers. She enjoys reminding my sister and me that she is our parent, not our friend. That is probably the reason we don’t talk about personal issues. I don’t remember the last time she has comforted me over being brokenhearted over a boy, or asked me about parties that I go to. She doesn’t ask and I don’t tell. We like it better that way.

During junior year, I inevitably spent a lot of time doing work. She would walk into my room, with a James Patterson book in one hand and laundry basket in the other, and put a pile of clothes on my bed. I ignored her as my fingers bounced off of the letters of my keyboard.

“Don’t forget to bring your dirty clothes downstairs tomorrow,” she reminded me.

“Yeah.”

“Also straighten up this room, it’s a mess.”

“Ok.”

“What’s the matter?” she asked, peering over my shoulder.

“Nothing, I’m just stressed out,” I replied, my eyes still peeled to the essay.

“Well, better get over it,” she snapped back. I rolled my eyes and began to pounce on the keys even harder. There’s no use retaliating or getting into an argument. I’ve learned her ways by now.

“Getting over it” is an idea that she thinks she’s coined. Along with “life goes on,” it is a line that she uses instead of pitying someone. These lines used to bother me and stun me. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t see I was struggling. Consequently, I would team up with my sister and have a gossip “We hate Mom” session in our rooms. But that has changed. Sometimes my sister still tries to have these sessions with me.

“She’s just such a bitch.” She ferociously twists my hair into curls with her iron. “Why should Mom care if I went on a date with someone?”

“I don’t know,” I say, more concerned about my skin getting scorched.

“Sydney, take off the sweatshirt if you want your hair to look good. It’s getting in my way,” she ordered. I unzipped the gray Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and threw it on her bed.

“That thing has a million holes in it anyways,” she continues. “I just don’t get it. I come home at a reasonable hour, I’m not getting married. What’s the big deal? I cannot wait to get out of this house.”

“Stop being so dramatic, you’re fine. She just cares about you so be grateful,” I snap, not able to listen to her complaints anymore.

Sometimes I hear myself turning into my mom. I don’t embrace it, I don’t avoid it, I just let it happen. I find myself rationalizing peoples’ problems and convincing them that their life isn’t so bad after all. My sister likes to complain about living at home, even though she is still in college.

“Enough,” I say. “You have parents who love you and a nice house to live in.”

I actually think I’ve heard these words come out of my mother’s mouth before. I think, at times, I reiterate what she says because we spend so much time together. We don’t get our nails done together, or go to the movies. That is what my friends are for. But we have dinner together while my sister is at college and my dad is at work during the week. We ride together on weekends. It is inevitable that what she says sticks with me.

I’ve found that she’s even channeled her high expectations into me. I don’t show her my report cards anymore. I don’t need to.

“Your grades are good, as per usual,” Ms. Mike, my advisor tells me at the semester meeting.

“Except my bio grade, that can go up. Also my Euro grade. I really need to start participating more in that class. Can you scroll back to Latin for a second? I think that dropped a point.”

My mom doesn’t say anything about my grades or my work habits anymore. She knows she doesn’t need to. I don’t complain much around her anymore because I know the response. But sometimes, to entertain myself, I’ll exaggerate situations to see what she says.

“Mom, I can’t go to school tomorrow. I’ll die,” I say.

“Really? Will you die? I guess we’ll have to chance it, then,” she says, sitting on the couch, not lifting her eyes from her book.

“That’s not very nice,” I argue.

“Well,” she says, “I’m sure you’ll get past it.”

I smile and walk away, knowing I would have given myself the same answer.