The Mother Load

Let me just get this out there. I love my mom.

She is one of the most selfless people I've ever been around. She thinks of other people first, she volunteers for many organizations and churches, she crochets prayer shawls, and is the Godmother to countless children. If she says she's going to pray for you, she means it and when she commits to anything, she follows through.

But...

Sometimes she tap dances on my very last nerve.

And here's where I feel like crap...because I know some of you would probably give anything to have your mom back. Joe's mom (whom he was very close to) died a few years ago and I know he would do just about anything to have her back in his life. So I get that some of you may roll your eyes at my blog post and make a sarcastic "Boo hoo" in the back of your throat.

But I know there are some of you who love your mothers and STILL can understand that they drive you nuts once in a while.

Because, like a helicopter, she hovers. The hovering and wanting to be right next to me all of the time drives me batty.

I just wrote about eleventy hundred paragraphs trying to explain why our relationship is the way that it is, but truthfully I'm still no closer to figuring it out, so I deleted them all.

Why am I writing about it now? She (who lives 12 hours away from here) will be at our place tonight through Sunday morning. All I can say is that this weekend is probably going to be really great or really NOT great. It's hardly ever anything in between with us.

I hope it's the first one.

I've cleaned the house (literally scrubbing the walls and baseboards), I've arranged to have wine and cheese out for when she and her friend arrive at our place tonight for snacks before we all go to dinner. I've arranged for activities that allow her to feel valuable and helpful (which is what she seems to love best) while still leaving time to relax.

I've prepared this weekend as best as I know how and hope that it will not end in tears, hurt feelings, and slamming doors as it has too many times in the recent past.

I need to remember to go for a run each morning because it helps me clear my head and feel more centered. I need to remember that the places we're going to eat are just places TO eat - and not places where I have to eat some sort of right combination of what my mom thinks is appropriate. I need to remember that I don't have to clean my plate, even if my mom thinks so. And I need to remember that just because my pants feel a bit tighter these days does not mean that I am less worthy of love.

Eesh. It's going to be one heck of a weekend...one way or another.