The Book - 7: Intrusions

Here is the next installment of my book. If you missed any, you can find them all using the Take Me To.... the book link to the right of this page. Enjoy!

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She remembered back to her freshman year when she first left home for college. Mia had answered every call, worried the electricity had been turned off due to unpaid bills or that her mom needed help. But the phone calls were hard on Mia. Sometimes her mom missed her so much and would call begging her to come home for a visit. When Mia explained she couldn’t, that she had work and classes, Maggie would cry. Other times, her mom would ask question after question about school, the classes, her roommates, the food, the boys. Her questioning was frenzied and erratic. Mia would try to share her life but the questions became more piercing, more intrusive. Even so many miles from home, she was expected to include her mom in everything. When the phone rang, Mia never knew what to expect, she just knew it would be hard. 

Mia had thought the distance would help but the constant contact was stifling. She needed some space and so she stopped answering the phone every time it rang. The voice mails were full of tears and raging that Mia needed to call her mother, “NOW!” But she waited. Mia would call her mom back when she had time or felt like dealing with the mood swings. She decided she would control the interactions by limiting the contact. 

In the spring of her freshman year, after a difficult Christmas at home, Mia stopped answering her phone altogether. She did not call her mom back either. She wanted the space to think. She wanted a chance to breathe a bit and figure out her thoughts about the yelling and name calling that had happened around the Christmas tree. She had heard enough stories of happy Christmas vacations from her suite mates to know that her Christmas, her relationship with her mom was seriously messed up. 

She had planned to wait a week. She had planned to call her mom on Sunday. Mia had not planned on hearing her mom call her name across the quad when she was walking to her first class. She did not plan on her mother having a map of the campus and Mia’s class schedule in hand, stopping students asking for help in finding her daughter, her daughter who would not call home. 

Mia learned very quickly that she did not ever want her mother visiting her campus again. She did not want her two very different lives crossing paths. She did not want her past visiting her future. And so she would return her mother’s calls. Just another way her mom kept control on her even though she lived a five-hour bus ride away. Even though Mia was now a grown woman with a life of her own.