Parents, Who'd Have Em?

Heh, this amused me (perhaps a bit too much).
(Source)

I love my parents, really I do, I just don't cope very well with actually living with them for any long period of time like I am currently. I've always been a rather independent child, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was an only-for a long time I've been comfortable in my own company and have probably spent more time with myself than with anyone else. I've never been someone who misses home easily-when, on our first trip away with school in year 4, some of the other kids were wailing and being inconsolable because they weren't near their Mum and Dad, I found I didn't actually miss them all that much at all. By the time we went away again in year 6 I was perfectly contented enjoying myself for the whole week without thinking about my parents except for when writing postcards to them in my clumsy penmanship. Zip forwards through my life and I've been away many times without ever really feeling a burning desire to come home again. Even at uni, where I moved out and finally gained my independence, I often didn't think about them at all, forgetting to ring them when I said I would and being scolded for it when I remembered a week late. I know some people who communicate with their families every day, that update them on every little thing in their lives but I just don't feel the need to (even though I know I probably should!). Maybe it's because we're not the closest of families-I still don't really talk to them about anything important in my life. We don't talk about boys, we definitely don't talk about sex, and I rarely mention my feelings to them because it feels weird. I nearly cried in front of my Dad in the car the other day talking about my future ambitions and turned away because I didn't want him to see, despite the fact he's my own FATHER and has seen me cry a million times before. (Probably).

It's something that's definitely got worse since I got back from uni though, because I came back feeling like a woman who knew herself and her own mind and yet still get treated like a teenager. I've gone from being the only person in charge of my life to having to check whether I can use the washing machine and having to write down my food requests on a shopping list which gets lost anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not ungrateful to them, I know how hard it must be having an extra person in the house again after all this time, an extra mouth to feed, an awkward person stomping around at 3am in the morning when normally the house would be silent, one extra person's mess to clean up. I try and help out when I can, but it definitely doesn't help when my schedule doesn't seem to run alongside my parents' any more-I keep getting told off for not doing things, when in my head I just hadn't done them yet. The amount of arguments we have over little things, coupled with the fact that due to my lack of driving licence I rely on them for lifts to places, is enough to make me feel like that stroppy teenager again. 

And then there’s boys. If I so much as mention a boy’s name my parents’ proverbial ears prick up and they want to know who he is and how I know him and when are they going to meet him? Even if this was a potential love interest of mine, things would get awkward quickly when I brought him home and they were horribly embarrassing, and then I took him upstairs and they reminded me that my bed is directly over theirs. It's certainly a romance killer, living with your parents!

So yes, I love my parents. I'm endlessly grateful to them for housing me, and not charging me rent until I can afford to pay them any. I thank them for feeding me, and for heating the house we live in, and driving me places at stupid o'clock in the morning or when I'm running late for things and the millions of other things they do. I know they do so much for me and I really appreciate that. It's just...I know that I'm going to appreciate them much more once I can afford to move out and don't have to see them every day. We'll have a lot fewer reasons to fall out with one another and so will get on much better, and I will feel more like a grown up, proper person, and less like a child, which can really only be a good thing. In the meantime I guess we just have to try and put up with each other as best as we all can, and try not to fight too much. Here's hoping.

-Jenni-