mom.

I was heating a Marie Callender's TV dinner--country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy--and for some strange, inexplicable reason I suddenly remembered this little snatch of a moment from my childhood. I guess I was maybe thirteen, fourteen then, just starting to rebel against parental authority. Actually, by then I was just starting to really rebel. I'd been subtly rebelling for a while. But anyway, the point is for some reason my parents and I weren't getting along all the time anymore, especially my mother and I. We used to be really, really close...and we still are, I guess, but it's different now that I've grown up and the change came in my teenage years when I sort of pushed Mom away and tried to stand on my own.

The way I say it makes it sound justified and normal, but it's really not a time I'm proud of. Now that I think about it, it must've really hurt my mother. Impatience, surliness, snappishness, all that great teenager stuff...

I've drifted off the subject again.

My memory: thirteen, fourteen years old. Lotsa tension most the time. My mom's a pretty frugal person. Now my parents are pretty well-off, I'd have to admit, but they weren't always like that. When I was a toddler we lived in a two-bedroom apartment and worked our way up from there. I won't say how much my parents' house is worth now, but I will say I'm damn proud of my parents. My father's really a pretty brilliant guy, and incredibly hardworking, and my mother is the glue that holds the family together. They've come a long, long way in the space of twenty years.

And I've gotten off topic yet again.

Anyway, my mom's always been kind of frugal. If she wasn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. But along with that is this sorta curiosity to try new things. As a result, when she sees a big sale at the grocery store for something she isn't really sure of, she usually buys it and takes it home to test out hoping we'd like it.

Anyway, this memory comes from this time when my mother bought these instant mashed potatoes home. Actually, they weren't mashed potatoes. They were seasoned potato flakes, or something. I think my dad was on a business trip, and my sister was at a sleepover, so it was just me and my mom. We were making these potato flake things, mixing milk and laughing and talking.

I don't know why it suddenly came back to me, or why I'm even writing (so disjointedly) about it, but I think I should write it down because it's a very bittersweet experience. The memory itself is beautiful. My mom's one of those people who deserves more joy than she has. Not that she's depressed, or anything--just that if we're proportionate, then for all the good that she does, she should be repaid with more joy in her life than a human life can hold. But the memory was one of those times I like to think my mom was really happy. And that's why it's a beautiful memory.

It makes me so sad to think about this, but sorta in a good way. I can't even really explain why. It has something to do with the fact that she was trying to save money, but still hoping that her family wouldn't get the short end of the stick because of it, or something...and I really can't put it into words, the whys of it all. It just is.

I think I'm also sad because it reminds me of an earlier, better time. Early childhood. Best friends. Nowadays she's my mother, and I love her for that, but way in the beginning when I was little she was my mother, my best friend, and my hero. That's how it was like in this memory of mine. She was my mom, my best friend and my hero for a little while, but then the general timeframe of the memory was when I started pushing her away, and by the time I woke up and realized what I was doing I'd already distanced myself too much for her to be a best friend and a hero anymore.

Argh. I think I'm kind of rambling in circles. It's pretty irrational, how much I miss my mom right now. I almost wish we didn't have to grow up. Didn't have to go through the teenage years where we start exploring independence.

...

I'd like to call my mom right now and just say, "Hi, Mom. I love you." --and really mean it. I'd really like to do that.

But it's 3:30am. So I'll just write in here and go to sleep. When I read this tomorrow I'll probably wonder what was wrong with me tonight...heh.

Well, okay. Bedtime. Goodnight.