I miss my mom.
Our relationship was complicated—it lacked authentic connection. It was push, pull. She was overbearing and smothering, and I often felt a need to escape. I was restless, emotionally expressive, non-conforming. It was a bad mix. I wanted her approval. Never got it. She was critical, and there was a lack of understanding. She played the role of wife and mother, but I sensed she wanted more.
Today marks three years since her passing. I spent a lifetime longing for a connection and only caught a glimpse of her at the very end. Deep emotions and shared experiences were not her language—she often didn’t know how to respond or what to say. She left Norway to build a life in the U.S., navigating cultural shifts while raising a daughter caught between two worlds.
Despite it all, she was my mother. My dad was much older and had passed away decades before, as had the only aunt and uncle I had in the States. Visits to Norway to see extended family became less frequent, and over time, even the Norwegian neighborhood in Brooklyn—where my mother had lived before I was born—and returned to when my father became ill—began to fade.
Grief is complicated. I think of her often, and I also carry the imprint of what was missing between us.
The Mother Wound
The mother wound isn’t often talked about, but it shaped so much of who I became. It wasn’t outright abuse or neglect—it was more insidious, harder to name. As a highly sensitive child—deeply affected by emotions, energy, and unspoken tension—I needed an emotionally safe, calm environment, and we just weren’t the best fit. I was expressive, restless, and had a mind of my own. She saw it as unruly and disobedient. She inherited a lot of rules, and children were to be seen, not heard.
I felt everything deeply, picked up on shifts in mood before a word was spoken, and needed warmth and reassurance. But my emotions were too much for her—something to be dismissed, silenced, or criticized.
I often thought it was my fault. I felt different from other kids. It was a psychological fissure left by emotional distance, unmet needs, and the absence of understanding, connection, and warmth.
Behind closed doors, she often became furious with me. She didn’t get my emotional language. And she had deep secrets—always keeping things to herself. It created a wall between us. The weight of her own suppressed and unprocessed pain, fear, and shame had to go somewhere, and I became the target. The black sheep—challenging traditions, never quite fitting into the mold—I was criticized and made to feel like an outsider. Common phrases like “What did you do wrong?”or “Shame on you” were a staple.
As a child, I internalized distress through intense stomach pain and anxiety. I was very expressive—crying, laughing—there was always a mood. By the time I was a teenager, I was frequently in trouble—getting zeros for talking too much in class, though my teachers found me somewhat amusing. I was sent to the principal’s office, which became an unspoken agreement—I helped grade papers. I didn’t tolerate boredom well and would play hooky from school, taking the NYC subway to Washington Square Park, Central Park, or wandering around Soho, scouring through record albums.
One of my earliest memories of feeling unsafe happened in first or second grade. Two boys in my class harassed me. The teacher didn’t seem to notice, and I couldn’t find my voice. The details are vague, but I remember the feeling—it was enough to make me stop going to school. I instinctively knew I couldn’t tell my mother. Instead, I hid at a laundromat across the street, chatting with strangers, pretending my mother would be right back. Eventually, the school contacted my parents. My mother’s response? She wagged her finger at me, as she often did, and asked, “What did you do wrong?” That moment stuck with me. It made me feel unsafe, more fearful, and apprehensive about coming home.
My mother wound wasn’t about physical neglect, but the emotional distance left a different kind of mark. I innately explored a full range of emotionality, while my mother found comfort in black-and-white thinking and the guardrails of acceptable conversation. She didn’t need—or want—to understand things deeply. But depth was at the core of who I am.
I enjoyed baking cookies and cakes with her, licking the bowl, shopping, and decorating for the holidays. She always dressed exceptionally well and was highly conscious of her weight—and of what the neighbors thought. I questioned everything. There was something odd, even disruptive, about my need to understand and feel things deeply. I watched her exhaustion, the weight of endless responsibilities she never verbally questioned—the cooking, the decorating, the endless gift-buying that often went unnoticed. It was an expectation of how things were.
It planted a seed in me—one that would later lead me to carve out a different path.
Yet, for all the ways we clashed, for all the things I needed that she couldn’t give me, I know now that she carried burdens I will never fully understand. In her own way, she loved me. It just wasn’t always in the way I needed.
Approval was conditional. Love felt out of reach. Adoration was met with criticism. Comfort, with distance. Safety, with self-doubt. And yet, in public, the expectation was clear—how to behave, what to say. I knew when to smile, when to be polite. The performance mattered. But behind closed doors, the frustration seeped out. My mother’s patience was thin. She carried an invisible weight that no one else could see, and I felt like another demand she struggled to bear.
Breaking the Cycle
Like most fathers of that era, mine was largely hands-off when it came to childrearing. He was sweet, charismatic, and charming. My father’s presence was easy, his love unconditional. He delighted in my presence as I twirled around the living room, fighting off bedtime. He liked jazz and would sing and listen to music, often fueled by a few whiskeys. I remember him coming home with a paper bag, and when I curiously asked what was inside, he leaned in and whispered with a playful smile, “It’s Daddy’s medicine.” I later learned the power of his suggestion and how easy it was for the medicine to go down. At dinner parties, I preferred to hang out with my dad for fun conversation over chores in the kitchen.
I quickly became aware of the limitations placed on women and how societal expectations shaped their roles. In young adulthood, I began to see what I felt were the constraints of traditional marriage and how it often left women with little autonomy.
Being the black sheep saved me in many ways. I embraced individuality, independence, and made a conscious decision at a young age to break the cycle. In so doing, I spent my young adulthood learning to parent myself.
Drawn by the need for space—physically and emotionally—I left NYC for California on a whim. The ocean air, open landscapes, and stillness of nature embraced me, offering a solace that contrasted sharply with the concrete jungle I had left behind.
It became home.