DUDE!!! My mother just offered to lend us her 70s Tupperware!!! EXXXXXCELLENT!!! WOO HOO!! Avocado green and harvest gold and whatever that orange was called... Wow, I'm way too excited about that.
But you don't understand!!! Tupac is dead!!!
Sorry, random familial reference there...
But you don't understand how much I love cheesy stuff from the 70s. I think my roommate Stina rubbed off on me. We're all about all that kind of stuff.
We watched Card Sharks from something like 1980 last night, and they were having kids' night (I fail to see how anyone would let their child play a gambling game...). The boy who was playing, quite obnoxiously I might add, was wearing this sweater that Stina really liked. And I told her, Stina, you'd wear that if you owned it! She looked at me, thought about it a second, and said, "True..." :o)
I love my roommate.
My mother is also lending me the bureaus that used to belong to my sister and me when we were small so we have somewhere to put our clothes... at least until we can afford to get our own. That I think is really cool of her; they're Broyhill, and therefore built to last. Oh, they have marks of wear and tear, but my sister and I could be rough on them.
So in other words, my mom is just the coolest.
No kidding.
I have kind of an odd relationship with Momma. Now that I'm an adult, it's more of a friendship since she figures I'm too old to discipline, and if she raised me right, I won't need disciplining anyhow.
But it makes me a little sad that I didn't get to see her much while I was growing up. And yeah, my stepmother was always there, but my stepmom and I have always had a bit of tension between us... It's the whole "You're not quite my daughter" issue, I think.
When I was a kid, I was moving all over everywhere because my dad and stepmom were active duty Navy. When Dad got custody of us, he was living in northern Virginia, where we stayed for the next four years. Dad was always really good about letting us see Momma, but it's not the same when you only see your mother on holidays -- Christmas, summer, spring break, and sometimes Thanksgiving.
I was very fortunate in that my parents had an amicable divorce. But it's still kind of weird when I think I can't remember of any holiday that my parents spent together with my sister and me. I'm a bit envious of my sister because she is old enough to remember them being married and spending holidays together, even though she had scarlet fever that Thanksgiving when I was one.
When we moved to Illinois and later to Nebraska and lived in the midwest for five years, I saw my mother less and less.
Then, and I hate to admit this, but I wasn't too thrilled with my mother during my high school years. Maybe it was the inherent teenage rebellion against their parents, but it just seemed that things weren't right between us and could never be repaired. And to be honest, at that point in my life I didn't really care.
Then I got to college. My aunt, my mother's only sister, older by ten years, went in to the hospital for a kidney stone and never came out alive. I did NOT want Momma driving to northern New York for her funeral all alone, so I told her I was going with her, no ifs ands or buts. So we drove all night my freshman year in college and were in New York for a week. I missed out on a lot in my classes that semester, but I needed to be there for my mother.
And from there our relationship has gotten steadily better. I know there was that one rough summer when I lived with her, but that had very little to do with our relationship. She lived within an hour of my college, and I would randomly go down there to see her.
With her just twenty minutes away, and with a connection to the Internet to boot, I have almost daily contact with my mother. And I try to see her every few weeks, to stay updated with her and her life, and to see her boyfriend Kevin who is just the coolest guy ever! I can't wait till he's a member of the family officially. :o)
And so now my mother is one of my best friends. No, I don't tell her everything, but she doesn't need to know EVERYTHING. I tell her ALMOST everything, and she is always there for me to comfort me and to hold me and to wipe away my tears when necessary. We're less alike than most people would think, but we get along famously, and we're really close now. It means a great deal to me also. After spending almost my whole life without her (since I don't really remember much of living with her, I was too little), I am glad to have her so close geographically and close to my heart as well.
I love you Mommy....