Published on November 08, 2005

On my first day of school 30 years ago, I cried so much that I remember the snot hitting my shoes. I missed my mother. Well some things never change…Not unusually, life continued to steadily orbit around my family throughout my school years. Love ’em and hate ’em, there they were – ever constant.

But as the ’70s drew to a close something came along that turned the concept of home entirely on its head.

“Divorce”. A word whispered in the corridors that spread through the school like some kind of contagion.

“Ahh, the feminist legacy… the worm has turned,” I remember my mother muttering from behind her dog-eared copy of “The Female Eunuch”. I held my tongue in an attempt to avoid catching anything.

The D-word spread anyway, turning classrooms full of conventional kids into custody casualties, silently stumbling through the battlefields of unfamiliar phrases like “single-parent families” and “visiting rights”.

Thankfully, our decidedly unconventional household escaped the plague. Our unit remained bomb-proof. At least until the teenage revolt…Then, aged 16, and after years of bedroom barricades and budding rebellion, ultimately I was the one who broke the ranks.

So having developed enough colourful vocabulary to blame my parents for everything in my life thus far in passionately poetic terms, I set about making some of my own mistakes. I packed my bags, stole the sandwich toaster and stepped out of the picture. Without warning, explanation, severance pay or a get-out-of-jail-free card, I absconded. On the surface, typical teenage ingrate: in reality, absolute home-wrecker.

My parents eventually got over it, of course. They were the grown-ups – still are. Two decades on, though, and I’m still officially AWOL, with the added insult of opting for a separate continent as my hideout. My parents have their version of visiting rights, otherwise known as holidays and I have my freedom…or what often feels like an excess of it. Yep, I still miss my mum.

So a month ago they flew halfway across the world, relinquishing control to culture shock, language barriers and the effects of jetlag, and into the capable hands of their prodigal daughter. The updated model, approximately two years older and apparently wiser, with several years of freedom from family under her belt.

Thrust back into the family bosom, I proceeded to get rapidly ragged with responsibility, threw the odd temper tantrum and suffered from the inevitable “invasion anxiety”.

While some children are overindulged and affected by an excess of money, attention or love, my parents committed the crime of spoiling me with security.

But then having starred in a solo show for so long, leadership is not really a position I relish. I prefer to drag my heels at the back with an ice cream. And with parents-turned-houseguests-turned-dependants, the invasion anxiety also paled next to the “inversion” insecurities. On the upside, snatching moments of freedom on the back of a motorbike suddenly took on a distinctly nostalgic pre-home-leaver’s thrill.

Eventually stepping back into my more mature shoes, I also enjoyed the benefits of seeing my parents as individuals, not the predetermined personalities of the kind that friends describe their own families, but real people that I really like.

And as they negotiated the new ground with casual aplomb, unwound into my pace of life and charmed my friends and acquaintances with their distinctly familiar qualities, we regrouped, reassessed our roles, and things fell back into place.

Roles are funny things though and it’s odd how after all those years of reliance, the tables inevitably have to turn – and just how predictably those batons will keep coming around. Giving up the role of daddy’s girl aged 16 might have been easy enough, but growing up into my mother’s daughter?

It’s actually not as terrifying as I thought, especially now that I can select the traits on offer with a little more detached discernment.

It’s shocking, really, that after all those years selfishly struggling to distance myself and affirm an independent individual identity, it’s taken at least another quarter of a lifetime for me to acquire the good grace to recognise my parent’s personalities in return. All I can say is that it’s a good job their love is unconditional.

What has become clear, now that the rebellion has faded and made way for a bit more humility and overdue respect, is that despite the distance, my family is still the backdrop that puts my independent self into perspective.

Yesterday, my mum rang to say she was missing me, the family time, the holiday… but that the insight into my faraway life had made it feel that much closer.

I shed a few tears at the distance, but thankfully my shoes stayed dry.

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