A few months into having my driver’s licence and a car of my own, I realised I associated leaving my mum’s house with a feeling somewhere between annoyance and stress. But why? I love my mother dearly, and we are very close. Visits are lovely and rejuvenating. So why this feeling?

It was because Mum, god bless her, has a tendency of remembering a Very Important Thing To Say right before someone drives off. It doesn’t matter if that person has spent a whole day or week with her. “Oh wait, just one more thing!” she’ll say apologetically, while still waving goodbye. Her timing is perfect. It’s always right when I close my car door. That is when the Very Important Thing To Say bursts into her mind. My response: annoyance.

No matter our age, parents elicit a childlike regression in us from time to time. We’ve all been around friends or partners when they talk to their parents, and it’s like witnessing a momentary Benjamin Button moment. These fully grown adults suddenly transform into teenagers, whining and moaning and digging their heels in. Why do they have to be so annoying?

“Every time!” I’d groan into the steering wheel, before stepping out to hear what parting words Mum had to say. Without fail, it’d be something that would never warrant my annoyance. “Don’t forget the book you wanted to borrow!” or “Good luck with [whichever of my life crises she calmly listened to for the last day].” Or sometimes, “Love you madly.”

And so annoyance becomes guilt. How could I take this incredible woman for granted? We all have little things about us that might seem irritating; why can’t I just have more patience? And then an extra dollop of secret guilt: I love my mum, but if I ever start doing that, bop me on the head (that expression happens to belong to my mother, also).

I’ve never truly dreaded turning into my mother. She is a fiercely brave and acutely intelligent person housed in the body of a short, gentle woman. She makes me laugh like no one else. I’ve had friends and partners alike remark on how similar we are, and this feels like an act of nature, not nurture. We see things in the same light and often reach the same conclusions independently. There is someone whom I fear I will become, and it is not my mum.

My mother is a compassionate and sensitive person, and talking politics with her brings me immense feelings of solidarity and hope – a dynamic I am very grateful for and appreciate that not every family has. Whenever I receive a compliment, it feels like my mum is inadvertently being praised too, because any good qualities I have are a direct result of being her daughter.

Despite this, the prickles of familial annoyance crop up in me from time to time, followed by a cloak of shame and guilt. OK, so maybe there are things you don’t have in common, like how every farewell becomes an information-giving session. That’s fine. Grow up and be patient.

I wonder if the intensity of fear some people have of becoming their parents is as strong as my fear of not becoming my mum. What if stress takes over my kindness, or my neuroses fog my compassion? What if my impatience takes over and I become a miserable, lonely person instead of the open-hearted person who raised me? What if I forget how to be playful and spontaneous with humour and give in to the self-critic and become a big, dark cloud who never smiles? (I told you I was neurotic.)

But then – something happens. Last week I walked a friend to her car, and as she was getting in, words burst out of me: “Oh wait, just one thing!” And with that, relief.

Read the rest of this story, which shares more reflections on family, in issue 108. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.