Cutting the Cord

So in a month i will be 23...i have not lived at home with my mom since i left for college 5 years ago. i am financially independent in almost every way, and yet-- i still don't feel like she has cut the cord. or is it me who has not cut the cord?? in any event, i don't think the cord has been fully cut and it has been weighing on me for the past year or so.

my mother is a great person and i love and respect her very much. we have a great relationship but sometimes i feel like i am smothered. she is my mother, and not my friend, and at times it is hard to see the difference. she shares a lot with me as far as her personal life goes, sometimes much more than i would like to know. at this age it is fine...but she even shared things with me when i was a little girl, a time when i don't think such personal things were appropriate. i often found myself worrying about her and taking on her burdens and i still feel that way today. i feel like i owe her something because she took such great care of me but i also feel like i am holding back the real, true, 100% me.

i am madly in love with my boyfriend and this is something that is new for me. unfortunately, this is not something i have shared with my mother because she is currently single (not by choice) and she is lonely. not only that but she still looks at me like i am a little girl. i told her that i was enjoying love once and she poo poo'd all over it by saying: "i'm not even going to touch that one." i was really hurt by it because this is a time in my life where wisdom and experience are what i need. instead all i get is bitterness. of course it doesn't make me love my boyfriend any less but i think about it all the time and it makes me apprehensive to talk about him and when i bring him around i don't want to be affectionate with him (not that i would slobber him down in front of her but you get what i mean).

at this point i think i am just rambling but being in the psychology field and studying marriage and family therapy, these are the things that invade my thoughts. i always wonder: how has my mother made me a great person...how has she messed me up?? i can easily name both lol. i guess growing up means doing things that make you happy and not what will make your parents or anyone else happy. things are going to change between her and i...and they're going to change soon...i hope she's prepared ('cause i'm not)...