Someday You'll Thank Me

"Someday You'll Thank Me." Can't you just hear those words falling from your mother's mouth? I know I can, but,truthfully in what context I can't recall. My mother was full of such sayings. While pulling my hair into tight pigtails or pouring stinky perm solution over my hair wound tightly over perm rods. If I complained, even as Vaseline was rubbed into my hairline and cotton wrapped around my head so the solution would not run and burn my eyes she liked to remind me of "her mother's saying; "It hurts to be beautiful,"

After I was ditched by a boy she said, "There's plenty of fish in the sea." That saying, by the way, does not make the bite of breakup feel better, not even remotely better. This saying, even now at 36.5 years of age, makes me want to roll my eyeballs at my mom, stomp into my room and throw myself onto my bed to sob into a pillow. No wonder I never wanted to tell my mother anything. Especially the dramatical, emotional events that plague the teenage girl kinda stuff. What's the point of a discussion when all I received in reply were sordid cliche's.

Here are some of MY MOTHER'S famous sayings:

If "so and so's "mom let her jump off a bridge would you?

That money is burning a hole in your pocket.

Do you think money grows on trees?

God will get you!

You had better hope your face does not freeze like that.

I love you, but, I don't like you very much right now.

You look like jail bait.

In my defence, I was 19 years old dressed to go out for New Years Eve in black velvet shorts, knee high velvet flat heel boots, black tights, a long sleeved white ruffly blouse and a black velvet fedora. The only skin showing was on my hands neck and face. The whole outfit was covered by a green full length down filled coat. I lived in Ontario Canada after all. It was NEW YEARS, which means 2o below zero most years. I looked like Captain Hook with two hands, wrapped in a pea pod. Not jail bait! And, for the record, after that statement I am pretty sure I had to ask her what jail bait was. I was just an innocent teenage slave to fashion with no in cling that I was getting dolled up to look like an underage hooker.

She also used to say:

Aren't you the kettle calling the pot black.

If you can't say something nice Shhh say nothing.

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.

And that is where I end this post. A whole pile of words, left open to interpretation. Cute little blanket statements that can be used when we don't know or have something better to say or don't have time to listen and/ or we want our children to do our bidding. Tidy age old verses befitting a stack of scenarios that can carry a whole pile of weight when used on teen aged girls. Words creating good and some not so good memories, however all of the negative ones are indelible. Which leads my last old saying to be. "You should think before you speak."