It used to be my biggest fear — now I consider it a blessing.
When Crystal, 25, was growing up, her worst fear was ending up like her mother Patty, 62. Although the two of them didn't get along well when Crystal was younger, today their relationship is stronger than ever. Cosmopolitan.com spoke with Crystal about what it's like when you turn out exactly like your mother and love every minute of it.
If you'd told me when I was younger that I would turn out like my mother, I probably would've shaved my head and said, "See? My Mom would never do that." Being like my mother was the last thing in the world I wanted to happen. It sounds silly to say I hated my Mom when I was younger, but I did hate her for a lot of reasons.
When I was 16 and wanted to date a boy who was 19, my Mom wouldn't have any of it. She was flexible about my being allowed to see him at first, but eventually she put her foot down and told me I needed to hang out with him closer to 4 p.m. than 9 p.m. I really hated her for that because I didn't see why it made a difference. That wasn't the only reason, but it was definitely a big one. I spent most of my teen years with my door shut and never wanted to tell my mom anything because I felt imprisoned in my own home. And not being allowed to be romantically involved with someone I cared about just added to the friction between us.
Soon after I started seeing that guy, my family went on a vacation and it was horrible because I didn't want to be around my mom or anything because I was so angry. I hated my lack of freedom, yes, but I also hated how concerned my mom was with how we appeared as a family versus what was really going on. We would go to family barbecues or other social events, but then behind closed doors my Mom and I were always yelling at each other and I would throw things at her. Then we'd go to these events like nothing was wrong at all because we needed to seem like a happy family. It didn't matter if it was true or not. That made things harder as well because people would say, "What do you mean you don't like your mom?" because everyone thought things were great in our family. But they really weren't.
Then when we came back from the trip, I found out that the guy I'd been seeing slept with someone who was a lot younger and he had to go to court for it. At that point, my mom told me I was forbidden from seeing him and that was really the final blowup. I just felt like, "How can you forbid me from seeing someone? I can go see whoever I want. Watch me." And so I left and I went to a friend's house to run away. I took a bunch of clothes and ignored my mom's calls. Finally the police called me on my cellphone and said, "You better come home or we're going to come get you. Since I was not 18 yet, I had to go home. So I did, but it was far from the last time I ran away.
There were other times when I would leave and not come back for the night and I know it always scared my Mom a lot. Looking back now, I know how much she cares and how worried she was. I had friends in high school who would run away for a week and their parents would just let them go and assume they'd get it out of their system. My mom is not like that at all. Now I know she had a hard time being away from me for even one night, but at the time it just seemed like she was being controlling. Looking back, we're both really emotional people so it was easy to let things get out of hand between us.
My Mom also worked a lot, but she'd come to my school events, so people would assume she was always there and present. In my teens, though, I spent most of the time with my grandma because my parents were always traveling. Then when she would be home it was like she was still at work because she'd be on the phone and the fax machine would be going off and she'd be on her computer. It felt like our home was more of an open office cubicle setting where there was like 500 things happening at once. Even when we'd try to connect and I'd try to communicate, she'd be doing a million other things and I'd be like, "Are you even listening?" And she'd say, "Yeah, I'm listening. I'm just doing this one thing right now." I really needed her full attention sometimes and she just couldn't give it to me. My Mom also cares a lot about her weight and exercising, even though we both are blessed with incredible metabolisms, so that was really hard to be around because it gave me some body image issues growing up I probably wouldn't have had on my own.
At that age, the last thing I wanted to do was be anything like my mother. In the last year however, I've had so many moments when I've thought, "Oh, I'm doing exactly that thing that my mom does" and it made me rethink how I viewed her.
I always thought my mother had these bad qualities but in fact, all those qualities are good. Instead of thinking that she works too much, I learned to realize that she simply works hard. Instead of thinking she was too busy, I realized she just has a lot of thing she values in her life. Instead of thinking she cares too much about her weight, I learned that my mother cares about her health first and foremost because without her health, she can't do what she wants to do in life, like taking care of me.
Today, I am just like my mother. I work really hard, sometimes maybe too hard. I am very busy. I do a lot of things my mother does: I talk with my hands; I forget the names of movies in conversations, so I have to explain the entire movie to someone before they know what I am talking about; I find it hard to relax; I sometimes end my text messages with "from Crystal" as if the person doesn't know my name; I save every plastic bag ever because it is good to save and you never know when you'll need that plastic bag later; and so many other things.
My boyfriend tells me all the time that I remind him of my mom, and I love that, because she's my best friend.