THERE are days when I can't help but feel that my mother will never understand me.
Yesterday morning, for instance, I was regaling her with a story of how I'd accompanied one of my best friends to get a tattoo over the weekend.
My mother immediately began linking tattoos to women who dye their hair a lot. It's a fad, she said.
I did not take kindly to her view, having three tattoos myself which I actually thought she liked. One, a a tattoo of a lotus flower on my hip, is even inspired by her and the Buddhist-esque philosophies with which I was raised.
I told her that dismissing tattoos as a fad was highly offensive and insensitive – and had she ever thought about the people who use tattoos as reminders of loved ones who have died?
Nay, she had not, she replied. But tattoos are still silly.
Disagreements with my mother are common – a problem which plagues many of my friends as well.
I have only one friend, G, who gets along well with her mother. They share clothes and shoes, and have dinner together almost every night.
But though I adore G's relationship with her mum, I love my love-hate relationship with my own mother. Call it dysfunctional, but I like the fact that we can fight.
There are times when I'd dearly love to throttle her a la Homer and Bart Simpson (and I have no doubt she'd love to do the same to me), but I actually think that our ability to fight shows that we have impassioned points of view. And fighting, funnily enough, is our way of sharing those views.
We have tussled verbally over a broad range of topics, tackling issues like how my house is not the neatest place on the planet, to more serious topics such as gay rights.
The fights end with one of us changing the subject of conversation. Or we simply grind to a halt, both of us panting from the effort of trying to make a point.
But even when I was younger, there was always an element of humour in our fights.
I remember my mother yelling at me about something when I was in my teens, and me yelling back. I suddenly burst into uncontrollable giggles, which set her off too.
"What's so funny?" she demanded, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
"I don't know, just... us," I remember saying.
That's how it's always been – whenever we fight, the anger doesn't mean anything. And if you look at why people fight, you will often find that there is often an element of care and concern behind it. It's just a matter of adjusting your ability to listen in order to hear it.
When my mother calls me out on how I keep my house – a terribly exasperating habit of hers – I remind myself that it is because she wants me to have a perfect life in a perfect environment.
She wants me to be responsible for creating that environment, and that moves me because I can see the love that's behind the sentiment.
When she tells me that what I'm wearing is awful, I remember that she wants me to be presentable so no one can fault me.
And when we disagree about things like drug laws, philosophy or even tattoos, I remember that it is our way of exchanging our opinions, and that raised
voices don't necessarily mean anger.
Will we ever stop fighting? I doubt it. And I really hope we never do.
