I realized something about myself, lately.

I was thinking the other day how I rarely sit down and have conversations with my dad and I have to make it a point to call my mom these days. I love my parents, but I wondered why desiring to talk with them doesn't seem to come naturally to me. I realized it likely has to do with my childhood. I couldn't freely talk with them, and growing up they didn't really seem to show an interest in wanting to have conversations with me. I examined my conscience and was able to come up that I don't do it out of resentment, but more like a habit. Something wasn't cultivated, so something didn't grow and bear fruit. That said, I called them and had a good conversation with both of them.

Before we moved, my son's best friend's mom asked me to come by her house and say good-bye. I never did. She's always been so open and friendly and conversational with me, and I wondered why I keep her at arm's length. As I thought about it at length and relayed a hurtful story to someone who was talking about something similar, I realized why. She's a benevolent queen bee.

You know, the women who take charge of social situations while all the other women buzz around her. Usually, they are portrayed as the mean girls in high school or college movies. But, sometimes they are actually very nice women who seem to genuinely care about others. But where the queen bee status comes in are the double-standards. For example, she was extremely negligent during a time when she had my son and my son got sunburned so badly most of his summer was spent as a literal burn victim. Seriously, any worse and he would have been sent to a burn unit. She was sorry, but that was it.

However, when one of my kids got upset at one her kids and knocked her down, I was subjected to a lengthy lecture and we had to do formal apologies and formal acceptances of forgiveness.

I realized that while, at the time, I let bygones be bygones, I noticed the double-standard and it really affected me. Not with bitterness or resentment, but with a hardness of protection and an understanding of the dynamic. When she, an adult, failed to protect my son, causing him a serious medical event, it was "oh, sorry," but when children were acting like children, it was a big deal. I don't resent her, but I am sorry that the dynamic is that way and it has caused a distance I don't care to breach (because it has shown up in other examples as a pattern.)

I'm an easy-going, easy-forgiving person, but when that is taken advantage of time and again, I just end up distancing myself. When cultivation of something only goes one way, well, what else am I supposed to do?

As I look across so many relationships, I begin to realize just how precious (and rare) good relationships are. I'm not going to stop talking to my parents, but I realize now why calling them doesn't come naturally to me, and that I have to put an effort in to do it.

And I realized why I feel/seem so "anti-social." It's not because I'm anti-social. It's because I am so keenly aware and careful. Especially now. I don't have the energy to deal with complicated or fake or uncultivated relationships. I'm the mother of 4 teens/young adults who are navigating the "I don't need mommy/I need my mommy" dynamic where I'm public enemy #1 one day and they're literally crawling onto my lap for a cuddle the next. (It's true that parenting children at certain stages is like enduring an abusive relationship.) I'm also in a marriage that has its own struggles I won't get into here.

Now, to sort this all out before the Lord and see how He wants to weave this and work this in with my Catholic faith journey.