I know what an unsupportive relationship looks like. I saw the toll it took on my dad. The lingering look he’d give my mom before leaving on long runs on Saturday morning. I heard my mom’s mumbled complaints while he was gone. The fights over race fees. Her asking when it would be her turn to be selfish.
With Miguel in the same sport as me, I figured he wouldn’t see the training and the dedication as selfish. And, I don’t think he does.
A derisive laugh tumbles from my lips. He is training me for free for fuck’s sake. He is giving me so much of his time and energy.
And his heart! He’s given me his heart. And I’ve given mine to him.
But still, he got in the way of me getting whatIwant.
He turned down a sponsorship for me.
How could he do that? I might have come to the same conclusion because Stan seems like a total hairy butt crack but, still.
There’s only one person who can help me understand how you can love someone and still hope they fail.
I stare down at the screen as it rings, wondering if it’ll even connect.
"Hello Laney!" My mom’s voice rings clear.
"Hey Mom."
"Everything okay?" She asks right away.
With a sniffle I answer, honestly, "I’m not sure."
"Okay, well, are you safe? Are you hurt?"
"Yeah, I’m sitting on a park bench. I have a question."
"What is it?"
"How come you hated Dad’s running career?"
It’s quiet on the other end of the phone. After a beat I hear her long inhale and exhale. "I don’t think I hated it. I resented how much he loved it."
"What do you mean?"
"Hold on." She mumbles something to someone else and I hear the background noise on her end shift until it’s quieter. "I’m glad we’re having this conversation, Laney, I hope you’ll understand. I’m going to do my best, but I’m only human."
A reluctant chuckle escapes my lips. "I get it Mom."
She inhales and exhales. "I struggled for a while after you were born. I didn’t feel like myself. You know I stayed home those first five years with you and your dad went to work. He’d be gone, morning until night. And he’d come home tired from work, change into running clothes, and leave again.
"But I was tired too, taking care of an infant then a toddler all day is hard work. Then on Saturday mornings he’d disappear for bike rides, for hours. I needed a break. I needed my husband. And he picked running over me, over us."
She pauses while I observe the leaves trembling in the breeze coming off the lake. My nerves feel equally rattled.
"It’s not logical. And it was probably immature. But I began to resent it. I cast his sport as the enemy. Your dad made it clear he never planned to give it up so it became the other woman in our relationship in a way. It was easier to blame training, and how much he loved it, for my unhappiness than to dig down and discover why I was feeling unhappy in the first place."
"Mom…"
"Laney, honey, I’m sorry you felt like I didn’t support your dad. You’re thirty now, and only recently did I realize how depressed I was back then. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last few years. And your dad and I did some therapy while he was sick. That’s when I realized how bad things had been."
"I’m sorry Mom."
"Why are you sorry? Darling, you did nothing wrong. I’m a human who didn’t have the right set of tools to handle everything going on in my head. But it’s getting better."
I let her words settle in.
