I have never been particularly “girly,” a fact which caused my mother great despair.
We both tried.
She tried to make me more feminine by buying me frilly little dresses and making me take ballet lessons.
I tried by not climbing trees in my Sunday clothes and submitting to Sunday night hair rolling horror sessions. Brush rollers are an instrument of the devil.
I didn’t intend to be a disappointment by being a tomboy. I was just far more comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt at the top of a tree. Still am – well, I don’t climb trees much anymore. On the bright side, Mother did seem to be impressed (or horrified) by my tree climbing skills and speed. She always said I could climb a tree faster than any kid she’d ever met.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved shopping and clothes. But shopping trips almost always turned into something just shy of hand-to-hand combat between Mother and me. We even had a secret code so we could argue right there in the store and no one would know.
It went a little something like this:
Mom: This outfit is so cute! What do you think? (Translation: I’m buying this and you’re wearing it, like it or not!)
Me: It’s OK. (Translation: It’s hideous, and I’d rather be set on fire than wear this in public.)
Mother: I would have loved an outfit like this when I was your age. (I don’t care if it makes you look 40, you’re wearing it.)
Me: I just don’t think it’s me. (This horror will never see the light of day. I will NEVER wear it.)
Mother: Isn’t this fun? (You know I can make you.)
Me: You’re the best, Mom! (If you make me appear in public wearing this, I can guarantee one of us will not survive the battle.)
And then there was the color pink.
I am not a fan of pink (the color; love the singer P!nk) – never have been, never will be. “Why wear pink when you can wear red?” has always been my philosophy.
So you can imagine my delight when I arrived home after spending a weekend with my grandparents to discover my mother had decided to surprise me by painting my room – cotton candy pink.
I was surprised, all right.
But she was so excited about her project I didn’t have the heart to do anything except tell her how much I loved it. So that’s exactly what I did.
I lived in that Pepto-Bismol room until I was in college. And I was OK with that, because I knew she loved me so much she gave me the room any other girl would have dreamed of having.
OK, the avocado green sculpted carpet, maybe not so much. But I learned to live with the pink walls.
And anytime I ever doubted whether or not my mother loved me, all I had to do was look around me.