Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

I don't know why I can only relate to my mother through the stories of other mothers and daughters. At the moment I'm reading The Joy Luck Club, and I have to stop every five or ten minutes because fat, silent tears start rolling down my cheeks. It's not that they evoke so much pain, I just can't help it. And they are so beautiful, these stories, proverbs, tales, metaphors, whatever. I have this bad habit that I always decide to quote the parts I like the best, then I read on and forget to quote them. And in this case there would be too many things to quote, so go and find out yourself.
So, my mother. I've been rehearsing what to tell about her, but obviously I cannot go into details, more so because some time ago she googled my name and found a poem of mine, and came home quoting the parts about the mother in the poem and demanded explanation, without actually giving a thought to the lines. That's how our conversations always go. If anyone mentions a problem, even a different aspect or opinion, she becomes defensive, as if someone was attacking her. She has this me versus the world perspective, or if you're not with us, you're against us. So no point in speaking up. But every now and then I do, though not with my sister's desperate and naive gesture of trying to change something. I do not exhaust myself with petty issues of chores. The only thing I cannot tolerate is humiliation.
We used to have an old PE teacher who always humiliated us, but mostly those who weren't good at sports, including me. Maybe he meant to inspire us, maybe he was just following some superstitious pedagogical pattern from his childhood, I don't know, but all he inspired in me was hatred and despise. And to this day no person can make me try harder by humiliation, rather I give up or try with someone else.
So, my mother. I'm not the kind who joins I love my Mom clubs on facebook. Maybe I'm a daddy's girl, but what else could I be after being separated from the age of eight, i.e. most of my life. I spent all the Christmases trying to make up to my father for having to live without us. Always wanting to give something special so that he sees that we love him. My mother of course always makes a fuss about it, mad with jealousy, as if they were two kids and I was the loving parent whose love they had to compete for.
If I were Chinese, I would say my mother's main element is fire, whereas my father's is water (or anything but fire). My Mom can only be loved with passion. For me she's like the mother in Joanne Harris's Chocolate, always changing direction with the wind, carrying her daughters around the world, no matter what through. An uncontrollable force who always wants to be in control.
I remember when a couple of years ago we went to see the fireworks and a very powerful and dangerous storm came out of the blue. We were at the middle of a bridge, people were coming from the opposite direction, and I almost gave in to hysterics. I was wet all over, the wind kept pushing me backwards, and I tried to push my glasses on my nose so that I wouldn't lose them. Obviously I couldn't see much, but my Mom grabbed my other hand, and with her other hand she held my sister's, and she marched through that crowd as a hero emerging from a battle, pulling us along. And that night I understood what all her life was about and all this terrifying and irresistible inner strength.
Our problem is that she sees herself as another individual, an individual with her own desires, which is natural of course, only it's not what you would find in The Good Wife's Guide. Our happiest days were those when she was loneliest, because then we would sleep in her bed, talking and laughing late into the night, without any intruders. No matter how good that somebody is, he will always be an intruder to some extent. Only now I tell myself that it's her life and I'm gonna live mine.
By now we have an unspoken understanding that we live like flatmates working different shifts. There are some weeks when I hardly see her at all because she leaves home early, and in the evenings I either work or spend time with my boyfriend. But even if we are both at home, she is most likely closed up in her own room, always being worn out by the hardships of the day. We have a virtual relationship, a framework, with some fixed habits like who does the washing up, who cleans the bathroom, etc. And mostly it's my sister and me, my mother's point being that she pays for everything. And I'm only too scared that I would end up like this with my own kids, my own marriage. It is nobody's fault you see, but then what is there to do?
And now she's on a two-week holiday, and after three or four days I noticed a hunger inside, an urgent feeling that she should come and sooth me, which she can do with as little as a smile (if she's in the right mood), and to some extent I was surprised at this. And even when she calls she never says anything but "How you doing? I love you." without a pause or the need for a reply, but still when she's away she calls every day, and now she hasn't called for five days.
It's not good mother-bad mother, good daughter-bad daughter. It's all a secret that even we don't understand. It's her laugh from upstairs, her perfume lingering in the bathroom, her funny little sayings. You cannot help it even if you think she's being selfish, unjust, stupid or whatever at some point.