My mum.

So, to know anything about me, you first have to know a bit about my mum.

My mum is amazing. If there was anyone in the world I felt I could talk to about anything, it would be her. She is the most patient, giving, loving person I’ve ever known – and that’s saying something considering what a strange and stubborn kid I was. Boy, did I test some limits.

She was a single mother of two daughters, born two years and two days apart from each other (though it’s a pet peeve of mine that people still confuse us for twins to this day). A few years later she even took in a runaway teen who I have always known to be my oldest sister.

I think the best thing about my mum is that she may offer suggestions, or hint at what she feels I should be doing from time to time, but no matter what, she always accepts what I decide to do, even if that is to do nothing at all. Case point is my complete lack of relationships.

This past year I did the unthinkable. What no grown adult should ever have to do, but some are forced to. I moved back home for a year. It was Hell. At least, it was Hell in that I was stuck in a small town I was sure I had escaped, in order to take a job. Damn you recession! *shakes fist*

The only silver lining was I was able to spend more time with my mum, and got to see her more as a person than in “mother mode”. We spent hours going over a bunch of topics, like when I was a baby, how she felt raising little ones on her own, and even about men and relationships. I then told her some things about me from my new adult perspective, and she gave me great feedback. One was pretty weird.

I told her that ever since I was a little kid, I had pictured myself as an adult, playing with my child in a park. I can picture the day, and what the child (my son) looks like, and it’s something I would think of from time to time. It was years later when I was entering high school that some thing odd about it had finally occurred to me. In all those times I had daydreamed about this far off land, there was never a father. It was just me and my son. When I told her this, she contemplated it, and then told me that it makes perfect sense, considering my dad was never around. It had just never occurred to me growing up that a man would have to be part of the equation. There had never really been one while I was growing up after all.

She said it all rather pragmatically, and it was then that I realized how much of my independence I got from her. Who needs a man? Not her. But she would concede that wanting one is entirely different. In that vein, she got married for the first time 7 years ago. I even gave her away. “Take my mother, please!” :)

And tonight? Tonight she came into town to visit me in my new, big city apartment. The topic of some of the crazy relationships my cousins have gotten themselves into came up.

Me: “Sometimes I’m glad that I am perpetually single.”
Her: “Me too.”
Me: “Mother! You’re married!”
Her (smiling): “Oh right. Sometimes I choose to forget this.”

See why I love her so much? :)