Clones

The more you try not to be like your parent(s) the more you find yourself becoming them. It's a sad conundrum but inevitably the circle of life. I mean, that's not to say if your parents went to jail you're gonna go too, or if they do drugs you're gonna do drugs too. No. Absolutely not. For one those are preventable circumstances for any individual no matter how shitty or un-shitty (that's probably not a word so I'm gonna coin it now) your upbringing is or was. However, I'm slowly realizing it matters in the nuances of one's personality. I used to hate it when my mother glared at me while  I ate, as if to scold me mentally because she didn't like the way that I  would chew. Mind you I never smacked my lips because that would get you smacked...right in the mouth, but she always would catch me when I was eating the crunchiest things like a pickle or Doritos. What she didn't get was if something was crunchy enough and a person is close enough you're going to hear them munch whether their mouth is open or not. There's a name for hating the way someone eats it's called: Misophonia. Now I just want to make it clear that even though I can identify the fact that this is an actual thing it doesn't stop me from going completely ape shit when someone is chewing in a way I obviously can't tolerate. And it's such a petty thing that I find myself thinking "why are you going off on this poor soul? You hated it when she did it to you. Cut it out." Clearly, "cutting it out" is easier said than done. And it doesn't only apply to anger either in fact the one summer I spent away from my immediate relatives the cousins that i reconnected with insisted on calling me a mini version of my mother that whole summer. Why? Because of my laughter. When my mother was in an exceptional mood and something was especially funny, she would unleash this visceral almost mean sounding laugh and  as luck would have it when I'm REALLY cracking up my laugh is identical to hers. What makes it even more substantial is that I only ever heard that particular laugh on one other individual ever in my life and that is from my maternal grandmother. What are the odds right? Very likely actually. There are going to be people reading this thinking well my parents are the greatest thing since sliced bread and I would be honored to be like them. And to that I say fan-freaking-tastic I'm happy for all involved. If you have a good influence in your life follow suit, uphold it well and then proceed to surpass it's greatness. But if not, don't fret. All you can do is take the mistakes your parents made and treat them just as they are. Learn from them and do your damnedest to prevent that type of history from repeating itself. So be mindful, noone wants to be see as the carbon copy of someone else. Uniqueness is where it's at, everyday, all day.