I realize that she gave birth to me and I am half her genetic makeup. I realize that she taught me most of what I know about relationships, friendship and social networking. I realize that she was the very first friend that I ever had and I realize that because I spent so much of my life with her, because she dressed me for most of my childhood, because she taught me how to style my hair and wear my make up and so on, it is pretty much a guarantee that I will resemble her. But nothing could have prepared me for the shock of being told that I am like my mother.

I was eating breakfast this morning when my younger brother said that his friends had said that I am exactly like our mom. My very first reaction was to cry. I didn’t think about what he had said, I didn’t examine it for insult or compliment, I just felt this overwhelming urge to cry. Then the panic set in.

I love my mom. I adore her. She is such an amazing person. If anything were to happen to her, I would die from the grief of losing her. But she is also carrying around so much baggage and is such an angry, racist, homophobic, incredibly overweight woman. She hates her life, and she makes sure to tell me this at least once a day. She hates her job, she hates her friends, she hates her clothes, she hates her body. She regrets so much about her life. She has wanted to leave her marriage several times. She goes to church every week but she never prays. She starts a new diet every Monday and by Friday, she has put on weight from all the binging. Her mother and father are dead and her biological father cannot be bothered to talk with her.

She is unfilled, unhappy and feels incredibly alone. I am indeed, my mother. I look at this woman and think that when I am 50, will I look like and be that person? It makes me panic and feel incredibly trapped. I don’t want to be alone and tired and fat and unhappy. I don’t want to have a platonic relationship with my spouse. I don’t want to have children who resent me. I don’t want to be her. How does one stop the inevitable from happening?

I want the fairytale. I want to be loved and desired beyond comprehension. I want children that are successful and happy. I want a job that makes me feel fulfilled. I want a home that is warm and inviting and filled with friends and family all the time. I want excitement and adventure and travel and passion. I want authenticity. I don’t want to fade away into some dull life, alone with my cats, the old maid who lives vicariously through the children she teaches in her job that she is bored with. I’m like the little old lady in the Hallmark movie who represents failed dreams and unlived passion, who barks at her neighbours and lives alone and is disliked and shunned by the whole town for being different and bitter and angry and sad, while the whole town carries on around her. Where is the pause button? And how do I make the ending change?