There's a phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, that's why it's such a funny angle.
So in realizing that tomorrow is Father’s Day, and since this blog wasn’t operating in May, I’ve decided to declare today and tomorrow “Parents’ Weekend”. That means that today I am going to talk a bit about my mother, and tomorrow I will talk about my father.
The only recent pictures I have of my mother are from March, when I was able to go down to North Carolina and visit my family for a few days. Since moving to Ohio, I haven’t really had a lot of chances to see them, except for my oldest brother’s wedding in April 2009. In fact, the March visit was the only time I did get to go visit since the wedding. Not having money for such extravagant things as plane tickets, and having a car that’s almost old enough to buy alcohol, traveling isn’t exactly easy for me. Still, I do my best, because I do miss my family and wish I could see them more often.
This is my mom at the spa, eating trail mix.
You can pretty much see where I get my good looks from. I definitely inherited some stuff from my dad, but I got my hair and certain other features from my mom. Also my poor eyesight, as you can see she wears glasses too (so do both my older brothers, my dad doesn’t). I’d say that I got a pretty good bargain, though.
My mother and I have always had a close relationship. It wasn’t always an easy one, as we tend to get on each other’s nerves quite easily (especially when we’re under the same roof), but there was always love there. We got closer after my parents divorced. I’m not going to go into details or take sides, especially since both my parents read this blog, but it was hard on all of us. I lived with my mother, because I was the only kid still dependent and it worked better for everyone that way, and I ended up feeling responsible, at times, for keeping her going emotionally. The first year was hard, but we ended up bonded in a way that I think a lot of kids don’t get. In a lot of ways, we’re more friends than just mother and daughter. Of course, that isn’t true for every aspect of our relationship, but that’s not really the point.
The point is, my mother is definitely one of my best friends. We talk a lot (I was actually on the phone with her in today’s photo of me) and we share most things with each other. We get on each other’s nerves mostly because we’re so alike, but not alike enough to agree.
This is my mom and one of my older brothers, the middle one of us three.
My mom is a pretty cool person, all in all. She grew up on a houseboat, with two older sisters. She has a degree in instructional technology, and has a job teaching teachers how to use technology effectively in the classroom. She sails on boats for fun, and she’s good at it. She’s smart, and easy to talk to (she makes friends pretty easily), and otherwise an awesome person. Today she emailed me something that I think was pretty awesome, and she gave me permission to post it here.
She told me yesterday about a project she was doing with a bunch of teachers. They had to write a story, in less than 100 words, and then make it into a graphic presentation, with pictures and text and such. And she was talking about how amazing some of the stories were, and this morning she sat down and wrote one herself.
“Found on sale in the back of a furniture store going out of business. It has worn many slipcovers. First elegant and expensive in my Doctor’s wife house and then a succession of blankets, sheets and throws. It held our old greyhound when she was dying, cradled me in the first weeks after he said he was leaving and then shortly after when I couldn’t turn away from the TV that September. Gilmore Girls on Tuesday nights. You and I hunkered in our cushy lifeboat as we tried to forget our new life without a husband or a dad."
She was cleaning out the cushions on her couch, that she’s had forever, when she was inspired to write this. And it is true, that couch holds a lot of memories, for both of us.
This is my mom posing in front of a really fancy store in Virginia.
There’s a lot more I could say about my mom. The things she’s done, the story of her life, how she’s made me the person I am today. But I don’t really think it’s necessary. My mom is one of the coolest people I know. I’ve often watched sitcoms and puzzled at the age-old line “oh my god, I’m turning into my mother”. Personally, if turning into my mother is what I have to look forward to, I say let’s get on with it, because my mother is really damn awesome. There are worse things I could be.
MirrorMe 