Coming Home

When they are sad in their suburbs, robots water the lawn
And everything they touch gets dusted spotless
So they start to believe that they haven't touched anything at all
While the cars in the driveway only multiply
They are lost in their houses
I have heard them sing in the shower and making speeches to their sister on the telephone
Saying, "You come home
Darling, you come here
Don't stay so far away from me"

Tonight is the last night I will spend in my parents house in my old single bed.  I am looking forward to returning to Brighton and escaping my parents' well meaning but overbearing ways ["call us when you arrive, and when you leave" "are you going to be ok driving in the dark?" "why are you smoking?!" "do you know how to work the washing machine?"]

As usual, I am more than a little sad to discover that I simply don't have any sort meaningful relationship with my Mum.  My brother, in a discussion about this very thing, said "the thing you have to remember, is that you and Mum have been at war for years, that's not going to be resolved any time soon".  The biggest block between us remains her inability not to pull a face every time I mention women and my romantic relation to the same.  She won't stand in my way but good god will she disapprove.

Comparatively speaking, I'm lucky, for some people telling their parents they are queer is simply not an option under any circumstances.  My Dad couldn't be more laid back and my brothers never even considered it - it just was.  My Mum, on the other hand, cycles between throwing direct guilt trips on me ("Was I a bad Mother to you? Was I too distant?") and the passive guilt trips (telling me about friends and family who are straight and having kids/getting married and looking incredibly sad when I mention I have met another girl).  She actually said to me yesterday "wait till you have one" as we looked at a tiny baby being taken out of a restaurant by its heterosexual parents.  She simply doesn't believe that there is a 50/50 chance my lifelong relationship will be with a woman, or that children is not necessarily a part of that future.  It's simplifies her position to say she thinks it's a phase, but it's not far off that.

My brothers regard all of this with resigned bemusement.  They tell me to focus on the fact she is my Mother and loves me for that alone, and that at 60, I simply shouldn't expect her to adjust to my 'lifestyle'.  The reason I so desperately want her approval is because she is only 60.  She has a phenomenally healthy lifestyle, along with my Dad, and I fully expect them both to live well into their 90's - my Grandmother is still going strong at 94.

This is where my life is, and how it will continue, and I just want for her to be able to share in my happiness, rather than constantly wishing it was something other than what it is.  Somewhere wrapped up in what she wants my life to turn out like is the motivation for her to encourage me to move from Brighton and back to the East Midlands.  Back to suburbia and mediocrity.  I want excitement, and diversity and opportunities life in the East Midlands simply can't offer me. 

And I simply can't find a way to explain that, and it's importance to me, to my Mother.