Breaking with my mom felt like losing a limb and having a broken heart at the same time (Picture: Lindsey Glass)
I remember boarding the plane for Los Angeles from New York thinking I was probably leaving my hometown, and high-achieving mom, forever.
My mom and I could be the best of friends and the worst of enemies, but we just couldn’t stop fighting. About anything and everything, all the time, and it was making us both miserable.
By now, everything I owned was either gone, sold, or in storage. I had once been a married woman, a filmmaker, the daughter of a nine-time New York Times bestselling author. I’d had a trust fund, and more stuff than I knew what to do with.
But when I boarded that plane back in 2015, aged 36, I had no husband, no stuff – and I was finally estranged from that famous mother of mine.
A terrible fight had torn us apart a year earlier, and we hadn’t spoken since. She had no idea how I was doing, or that I was moving 3,000 miles away that day – and I didn’t care.
All I wanted was to find myself, find peace, and make it on my own far away from her.
This wasn’t our first separation. I’d always been an adventurer and had boarded many planes in my life, often with a devastatingly broken heart. At 15, after my childhood sweetheart was killed in an accident and his best friend subsequently killed himself, I went to a boarding school in Rome.
At 31, I returned to New York after a failed marriage in Los Angeles.
I truly didn’t think I’d ever see my mom again (Picture: Lindsey Glass)
This time, though, I was more sure than ever that, with new scenery and a warmer climate, I would be able to rebuild and recreate myself.
Still, another part of me was crushed. Breaking with my mom felt like losing a limb and having a broken heart at the same time. The limb may have been infected, but it was there, and it was familiar, and I did love her. At times, anyway.
As the plane took off, a chill went down my spine. I truly didn’t think I’d ever return to New York or see my mom again.
Years of misunderstandings, misguided intentions, and a total breakdown in healthy communication led us to this point.
The actual fight started over a request for me to leave my mom’s apartment where I was living so she could stay there for a week and not have to deal with me. It was her apartment after all.
She claims she said: ‘Leave for the week,’ but I heard: ‘You have to get out of my apartment.’ The problem was we were already in such a bad way, this request was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
A lifetime of deeply hurt feelings had left me feeling wounded and paranoid, explains Lindsey (Picture: Lindsey Glass)
I’d had major spinal surgery, a break-up, and a relapse the year before so my sobriety and emotional wellness …read more
Source:: Metro
