Lana feels

I'm reaching the conclusion that I will just never understand my mother. I think sometimes that she's just missing whatever part of the brain it is that allows us to relate to other human beings. The part that gives us the ability to do things like read between the lines of a conversation to realize that when your daughter takes a sudden interest in a subject she's never mentioned before, you might want to wonder why. I keep trying to bring up to her the idea of rooming with Jica next year. We don't have definite plans yet; there's part of me that would love to room with Anna again, or Caryn or Linzi. Some permutation of the four of us in two rooms on the same hall would be a great arrangement, especially if we could get the Jica-Katie-Kayla trio too. Me and my eternal attempts to gather my friends in one place, yes, but it would be great. We wouldn't have to do this going out in the cold to see one another stuff that is presently necessary if I want to see Caryn or the Wilder trio. We could just dash over in our pajamas for a moment's chat, the way we do now between my room and Linzi's.

But there's a growing part of me that toys with the idea of living with Jica. And then, when the sensible voices aren't looking, it goes past toying to serious consideration. We've talked about it, and agree that it would certainly make life easier for us and our roommates. It would mean an end to sexiling our roommates, an end to sleeping two people in a twin bed, to all the inconveniences of living apart when all we want to do is be together. We get along well, never fight, talk out any possible discord until it goes away in disgust to find people who don't act like they've been in 10 years of couples therapy. And all reason aside, we want to. There are, of course, concerns. And that's where my mother comes in.

She's a concern. I ended up coming out to my father as a result of an argument with my mother over pre-marital cohabitation that he happened to be present for. Since I won't be getting married, it's a little hard to put off living with someone until I do so. Besides which, I think it's silly to say you're going to spend your whole life with someone before you know you can live together without killing each other. She disagrees. She never clarified why she disagrees, but she does. That discussion, which took place just before my senior year, was the last time we talked about it, but I doubt her position's changed any since then. I imagine the fact that we're in college, 18 and 19 years old, and have at this point only been dating for not quite 3 months won't help anything. Considering all that, I don't know why I want to talk to her. It would be easier on everyone to wait until we've reached some resolution on the matter and then just tell her, but in part I wanted to give her time to get used to the idea, to feel like she'd at least been asked for her opinion... And maybe because I have enough doubts of my own that I wanted to argue with her about hers so I'd talk myself out of some of mine. My discussions with my mother tend to work like that; I may go in unsure of something, but just let her attack it and suddenly wild horses couldn't budge me.

For whatever reason, I picked last night to bring up the subject. And found no less brilliant a way of doing so than mentioning that in 3 months, it'll be legal for me to get married in Massachussetts. She frowned at me and said she hoped I wouldn't do anything rash. But when I followed that comment with a whole barrage of questions about relationships and why she didn't get married until she was 33 and when her friends who met their first year of college knew they were going to be together forever and whether they'd lived together before they got married... Not a word. She fixed herself a mug of tea and we ate nuts together as she told me the saga of indecision that was her twenties, and the thoroughly unromantic story that was her courtship with my father, but never once did she show any sign of alarm that I'd suddenly taken an interest in all this. I love these little chats.

The one when I was twelve and got my period for the first time, and thought that a good way to broach the subject would be to ask her when she started hers and about her experiences with the grand adventure that is women and their menstruation. She answered my questions, but never once did it occur to her that there might be a reason for my unprecedented interest. The one when I was fourteen and I lost my virginity and dallied for a moment with the idea of talking about it with her, so asked her when she first had sex. The fact that the number she gave me back was twice as old as I was at the time of the conversation was enough to make me reconsider telling her, and since then we've gone back to our old and well-loved policy of not talking about sex. Political issues surrounding sex and sexuality, fine, but the act itself is Not Something We Talk About. But that night she showed no sign of curiosity as to why I would want to know this after 14 years of being perfectly content in ignorance. At least I was bright enough never to sit her down and ask her if she ever had a sapphic encounter when I was dealing with my own sexuality - she did go to Wellesley, but if she did, I don't want to know. Ever.

Part of it might be that things seem to happen to me a lot younger than they did to her. Her excuse for being clueless when I started menstruating was that I was two years earlier than she had been, and so she wasn't expecting it yet. Judging by the fact that she thinks my 14 year old sister is too young to be going on dates, I'm assuming she wasn't expecting me to be sexually active at that age either. And now she's certainly not expecting me to be, at 18, thinking about marriage. Which I'm not, because on my personal projected timeline, I've got another 10 years. I decided when I was 9 that 28 was a good age for that sort of thing, and I see no reason to change that now. But I am thinking quite seriously about long term relationships and how they work and what it means that when I look at Jica and me, I don't see an end. I don't think I see forever, but there's nothing I can point to and say, that will be the end of us. And there's the part of me that keeps up with this irrational hope that someday my mother will buy a clue and learn how to talk to me and impart motherly wisdom. No such luck so far. Try again next milestone.