Help! I'm My Mother!!

This morning I had an out of body experience. I went to my usual exercise class and we had a sub. Okay, no problem. Always nice to mix it up a little. Well, the first song she played was Bob Segar's Old Time Rock and Roll, and all of a sudden I was my mother. She was in the mirror moving her arms and legs. I was her! I was her and we were back in the house I grew up in and she was dancing around the kitchen before dinner. Is that her upper arm? Those are definitely her elbows and feet. This is too weird. After that song mercifully ended, the instructor started in with all these songs from the '80's. Songs I used to listen to as a teenager, and I was my mother again. I'm the same age my mother was when I graduated from high school. I can remember how she looked and acted and things she said, and now I'm her. Not all the time, but enough so that it freaks me out. No disrespect to my mom (love you, Mom!), I just don't think anyone wants to FEEL like their mom. It's like a giant time clock ticking down the minutes of your life. It's fate laughing at you, saying you thought you were different, but you can't hide from heredity. You will be like your parents, just as they were like theirs.

And it's not just me. My siblings are becoming my parents, too. I talked to one of my brothers on the phone the other night and he was my dad. Same voice, same inflection, expressing the same frustrations with computers and social media. When my other brother walked up my driveway, I did a double-take. He looks like my dad did 25 years ago. How did that happen? Sometimes when I catch a glimpse of my sister, I can see my mother when I was a kid. If I see her profile, I'm transported back in time. So weird. Don't even get me started on voices. When my siblings and I are together, I think of how my aunts, uncles, and parents used to be with their laughter, veiled adult references and topics that were so fascinating for me to listen in on as a child. I feel like my grandmother will emerge offering drinks and pretzels any minute.

I laugh at the irony. My teenagers, I'm sure, would be mortified to think they'll someday be like mom and dad. They've declared many times they will NEVER act like us, talk like us, be embarrassing like us. And yet they will. It will creep in slowly and they won't be able to stop it. They won't even mind some of it. They'll laugh about it with their own kids. 

Declaring you won't be like your parents doesn't end. I still think to myself, I will never do that. I'll never say that, I'll never let that bother me, but who knows. I couldn't stop becoming like my mom at this age, so I doubt I'll be able to keep it from happening over the next 20 years. I'll try to hold it at bay and I'll be successful in some areas, but she will still show up in the mirror. I'll still hear her voice in mine. Sometimes it creates a warm feeling of nostalgia and sometimes it helps me to better understand who she was. But mostly, it freaks me out!

I was SO relieved when the instructor finally played Katy Perry's Roar at the end of class. Okay, I'm back. That's me in the mirror again. I'm not completely my mother...yet!

Me, my mom, and my sister

Tell me I'm not alone. Are you seeing your mom emerge in you, too? Are you doing and saying things you swore you'd never do? Is that her staring back at you in the mirror?