Hearing your voice is like chewing tin foil

Every waking moment gives me a stronger sense of longing for college. I'll certainly miss b day lunches, taking strange pictures for no reason, general camaraderie and good times. But not the bitterness that is slowly enveloping me from the inside out. And it doesn't even stem from my apathy toward the vast majority of the class of '04, but my own household. Trying to have a sensible political discussion with my mother seemed a relatively sane thing to do, until I realized that anything I said would be seen as wrong. If I don't support bush, I have gotten pulled in by the "liberal slant of the media." If I choose to have a moderate view, I'm obviously a supporter of complacency or ralph nader. Oh, and the chance that I'll support bush is unlikely, but if I do, it must be to please my parents. After trying to assuage her fears about me becoming the next hillary clinton, my mother goes off on a tirade about irreverence toward the leaders of this country. She makes her views explicitly clear, yet states that she has no interest in politics or knowledge about them. I am left with no way to respond, so I try to exit the conversation gracefully. Now I'm "avoiding" her and sidestepping the issues. The discussion is finally ended, with the knowledge that I am not a raging liberal and that my mother is vocal about supporting the president but knows little about current events.
I have grown accustomed to the fact that I cannot sit down and talk religion, politics, truth, beauty, freedom, love, (sex, lies and videotape) with my mother without getting into a shouting match. No matter how much we agree or disagree, she can't listen to a word I say without talking over me. She was telling a story about someone the other day and I asked her the same question four times. She heard me and responded once. My father, the intellectual, perceiving one, is readily available to talk to and actually listen to what you say.
Like many other graduates, going away to college will be extremely liberating. Don't get me wrong; I'm not going to come back after a month in austin with ten piercings, dredlocks and a girlfriend, but I will be glad to have a fresh perspective on life. Constantly filled with righteous indignation, my mother is constantly attempting to shield me from the real world, which is an "unholy place" with things that aren't glorifying to God. I hate to break it to her, but in less than three months, I won't be living here anymore. What then, when like many other college freshmen, I won't have parents looking over my shoulder as I type on my computer, or watching me drive away with friends? What then?
Today is the perfect example of the overly protective and readily offended nature of my mother. I made the monumentally stupid suggestion that we rent a movie, which is always a thrill. Video Village just so happens not to have the 1975 "Stepford Wives" in, so we peruse the new releases section. "Love Actually" piques my interest, while my mother looks at "Monster," "The House of Sand and Fog," and "Mystic River," all of which are 'R' rated. We go for the most lighthearted of the bunch, and pick my choice. I put in the dvd at home and we turn it on. A mere two minutes after the film starts, one of the characters lets off a stream of cursing. I brace myself for the explosion, and it begins shortly afterward. My mother is appalled at the language, but I look the other way, because hey, it's R RATED. About fifteen minutes later, I'm getting increasingly worried about the reaction to the language and brief nudity. As I expected, my mother takes the remote and removes the dvd from the player. She explains that the movie was "filth" and typical british humor, which I happen to enjoy. After placing the disk in its box, she says that she is going to return it, because no one is going to watch that in her house, in her presence or alone. I depart to my room and a mere fifteen minutes later hear the narrative of what occurred at the store. She returned the movie to the desk and said that it was highly offensive and that she didn't appreciate it at all. The girl at the register reiterated the fact that it was rated 'R', but my mother replied that she had seen r rated movies and this was trash. She asked that no one but larry or anne daniel be allowed to check out movies on that account.
I'm never going to show my face in video village again.