A Kind of Work My Mom Doesn't Get

My mom has always pushed me to be productive every moment of my life. When I was 12, she said I was wasting time by not reading a book while waiting for a doctor's appointment or listening to an audiobook during the 10 minute walk between the high school gym and my math classroom. She wouldn't let me watch my favorite TV show without also doing the splits at the same time. She loves me and wants the best for me, and she holds standards for me that she doesn't have for herself.

She's a beautiful, fashion queen who spends her days traveling, writing blog posts, hiking, dressing up to take photos with her friends, and going to adult dance classes for fun. Mom retired in her early 50s and lives a care-free life with our dog, Coriander, who absolutely loves her. She barely does chores, doesn't cook, eats out most nights. She has my dad, who spoils her and buys her everything she wants, works hard to make her money to buy all that she wants on vacation, and takes photos of her in new clothes. Yet somehow, she pushed me to take 6 classes instead of 4 in a semester during college, to "not waste time," and to do everything she wished she could have done as a child, from playing the piano and cello to dancing 5 times a week to enter modeling competitions as a 10-year-old.

I love making my mom proud of me. I love when she tells me that I'm special, that I'm good at achieving things others did not find possible, like pivoting industries and preparing for a technical interview in 1-2 weeks. I love when she hugs me, when she encourages me to try new things, when she spoils me by buying clothes for me that she wouldn't feel justified getting for herself. She is my world, one of my favorite people ever, one of the main reasons I choose to stay alive, yet she also hurts me more than anyone else in my life because of the values of perfection and constant productivity she has instilled in me.

I don't think my mom understands how much work my partial hospitalization program is, how difficult it is to be in a room with other sick people from 9-3 Monday through Friday and talk about suicide, self harm, emotions, trauma, etc. Even though part of me knows this is hard and knows that my exhaustion at the end of the day is valid, another part of me hears her voice in my head. That part of me thinks I've wasted 6 hours a day, when I could have been preparing for an interview or doing a coffee chat. It thinks I've wasted the day, and when I've wasted the day I have trouble concentrating for the rest of it. That part of me tries to be silent during parts of PHP because I want to conserve energy to do work in the afternoon and into the evening. That part of me is conflicted, wanting to feel better but also feeling torn because I feel like I'm giving myself a pass to waste time.