A Reflection (Emotional Bits in Brackets, Skip If You’re Not About It)
SUMMARY — I went on vacation to *9 DIFFERENT MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES with my **65+ YEAR OLD, KOREAN IMMIGRANT MOTHER for 12 ***CONSECUTIVE DAYS and learned a lot about a lot. FEELS WERE FELT. INSIGHTS were had. SALSA was danced.
1. Apparently… My Mom Has A “Carefree Vacation Mode”
Because I took charge of the all of the trip details (cost, lodging, meals, travel arrangements, etc.), my mom’s focus naturally fell on enjoying herself and thinking up what next to explore. This may not sound especially fascinating, but incredibly (and heartbreakingly for me), we both realized that we had [basically] never witnessed these conditions (her having zero responsibilities) together. Her “factory default setting,” at least as I had always witnessed, was run on Mom OS. Mom OS, for my mom, included but was not limited to the following features: Solver of Problems, Involuntary Cultural Broker, Translator, Eldest Daughter of Many to Her Own Immigrant Parents, COO & CFO of Household Affairs, and Entrepreneur. When she had the space and safety to “thaw” a bit— naturally, quietly, immediately — a curious, playful, little dreamer emerged… and was mainly concerned with trying new things just for the fun of it. She napped. She squealed in anticipation for each next day’s itinerary. She asked questions about the details …and relished in the fact that she didn’t actually have to remember any of it because I had it handled.
[THE FEELS: Witnessing this ‘thawing,’ as her daughter, was equal parts delightful, fun, funny, and DEEPLY devastating because I was so profoundly made aware of how novel a sight it was to see. BRB weeping break]
2. Traveling had been romanticized for us both.
Don’t get me wrong. Obviously intentional exposure to different cultures and ideologies and people groups is beautiful, critical, and wonderful. Period. But traveling in a way that can meaningfully incorporate those things is expensive and exhausting. It costs a LOT of money, time, and physical energy. Traveling with a tiny Asian woman in her late 60’s made me aware of how inaccessible traveling is to so many people. Want to go to the Mediterranean? Do you want an international data plan? Pay. Are you able to walk everywhere? No? Do you want to drive or be driven or take public transportation? Either way, pay. You want to park? Pay. Do you need the bathroom? Pay (literally there was a pay-to-use standalone BATHROOM in Florence).
[THE FEELS: For someone with tiny legs and brittle knees from having worked 30+ years in a job that required constant standing, this is costly — sometimes a bit too much. So then, stay on the tourist-laden-accessible paths. The photos will mainly be littered with others like you. You can still see lots of very beautiful sights but heavily punctuated with merchants selling to tourists. It’s not quite the cultural immersion you may have dreamt it to be. They know you’re a tourist. You feel targeted and maybe even cliche. You swallow the stale deflated expectation. You take the photos anyway. There’s still quite a lot of loveliness to capture in the photos you guess… it’s just not what you thought it would be.]
3. Thus (see #2), traveling together became *primarily* a means to connect with each other.
Is this a known outcome? If so, it wasn’t to us. Neither of us had ever had the means (time-wise and/or financially) to travel together until this experience. We simultaneously felt the same sense of awe and wonder and curiosity and butterflies and disappointment and embarrassment (?) at our naivety regarding the romance of travel. I had planned for both of us to have international data plans but the execution of it just didn’t work out because of a technical issue I couldn’t have foreseen/planned for. So we were mainly limited to free wifi available at select cafes and restaurants. Frustrating as this was, it may have been the greatest gift. We discussed everything. We learned how to salsa dance. We giggled over sugary, colorful alcoholic beverages that we knew she couldn’t/shouldn’t finish. We people watched. We healed. We stared. We talked a lot about BTS.
[THE FEELS: We both found there was so much to talk about when we were outside of the routine of our daily obligations. What inspires us? What scares us? The parts of our histories that we kept from each other because life was too busy to dump this kind of life experience story unto the other. It would only hurt. But now, we had time to process these things. Productivity was never the goal. We were still so productive.]
4. It can be so healing to unpack the term “gaslighting” with a parent.
Here’s the thing about gaslighting: it’s about fear and ego. Right? People gaslight others because they’re afraid of the consequence of assuming responsibility for the damage caused by their misstep. But sometimes it’s genuinely born of the fear of confronting our lack of control in the damage done to the gaslightee(?). What hope do we have of living well if we’re causing profound harm unknowingly? No. Can’t be. Moving on…
Sometimes it’s just born of the fear of scuffing up one’s own ego. I think it can be difficult and painful to parse the cause. But it is necessary and critical work to end the chaos.
I had been gaslit by my mom so many times. For her, it wasn’t done with the intent or plan of wiggling out of responsibility so she could come out the hero and make me feel insane. It was because acknowledging her misstep would also be accepting her lack of control — that it is possible to unknowingly take actions that sincerely were not meant to cause pain…that caused so. much. pain.; that growing old has actually taken a palpable toll on some of her abilities; that feeling ‘left behind’ by the changing times may have squeezed her into rash or misguided actions that impacted her loved ones for the worse; that some ‘neutral’ decisions she had made had dire consequences. It’s scary. So let’s not give those possibilities room to exist. Lots of real fears. Best of intentions. Terrible outcomes.
[THE FEELS: We laughed and cried over the sheer absurdity of the destructive power of misunderstanding and kept unpacking.]
She had been gaslit by others so many times. Some better intentioned than others. We both conclude that folks who gaslight others KNOWINGLY are the scum of the earth and cowards who need a better sense of self-awareness. We also conclude that when I bring things to her attention that may sound accusatory, my goal is never to judge or condemn her as a bad mother — it is a plea for her to acknowledge that my interpretation of events was possible and valid, even if different from the way she’d hoped I’d interpret them. We both promise to be more gentle and patient when we seem to be misunderstanding each other.
5. “Let’s take a picture together.” I hate it but I want to love it.
I was all about photos when I was little. I’d strike a pose at the mere mention of a camera whether I was supposed to be the subject or not. Before I knew what it meant to feel ugly. Before I learned to be insecure about my appearance.
Somewhere along the way, I adopted a private fear of photo ops. But I am reasonable, endlessly amenable, and don’t think this particular insecurity is conflict-worthy so I resign. I sorority squat for the group photo. I duckface for the group selfie. I get it and it’s fine. I basically hate it. But I am trying not to…
In the last few years, my last remaining grandparents both passed away. One less than a year after the first. Cancers. Photos were displayed at their funerals. Pictures of them happy, gorgeous, young, sassy, handsome, wild, settled, adventurous, wrinkled. I was tasked with putting the photos together for each funeral as the eldest grandchild. I reached out to aunts and cousins. I scoured Facebook. I screenshot Instagram posts. Photos are as much for the viewers as it is for the subject. I learn that I feel a responsibility to make myself accessible for my future self, family, and friends. And not just for after I die… but all the noteworthy moments leading up to the end.
Taking my own picture/having my picture taken is, for me, an exercise in confidence. Wanting to crystallize an iteration of myself in a moment in history feels insane to me. But, I do eventually want to own each body shape I inhabit through different seasons of my life and to find myself beautiful. It is work. I find this work difficult and awkward. But I want to do it because I want to be accessible to those important to me throughout time. I hope my family members and friends will follow suit and I believe in leading by example. Many of them are already so much better at it than I am but still~
[THE FEELS: I still feel so uncomfortable posing for these photos but now I have them. I am going to keep actively working on getting better at taking and being in photos. I want to keep growing in this area…]
All in all, this trip has reminded me to hold each moment preciously, to wield time responsibly, to forgive more easily, and to take lots of photos along the journey.
