A Mothers Influence

I’m turning into my mother. 

I know. That can be a lot to unpack. My mother is a multifaceted woman with many different layers to her life, personalities and relationships. So let’s just say on the most superficial level I have started to embrace some characteristics and quirks that I will forever associate with my mom. 

For example, I have never really craved Diet Coke and yet just a few weeks ago, it sounded delicious and I had to order one with lunch. 

If I think of my parents on a weekend morning (and more specifically a special day for my mom like her birthday or Mother’s Day) I will always picture my mom wearing her gray robe sitting at the dining room table reading the newspaper (most likely doing a sudoku or the crossword) drinking a latte and eating chocolate croissant that my dad most likely bought for her that morning. Let’s just say this is my ideal weekend as well. I love my gray bathrobe and miss my weekends reading the SF Chronicle. I also love to take advantage of days working from home to grab a latte and chocolate croissant from Victoria Pastry Company for my mid-morning snack. 

I can now appreciate the need to clean the house before you leave for vacation.

I recently found myself driving on the freeway in my black Subaru just like my mom’s, rocking out to Chris Isaak (who I never really appreciated until recently) feeling the soulful lyrics and music tug on my heart. Even worse, I was on my way to buy a plastic container to hold all of our emergency supplies in the back of the car. I stopped short of buying a plastic tool box, but the intention was there. 

And most telling of all. I can now understand and appreciate the silent rage my mom felt one morning many years ago that will live on in family folklore forever and resulted in a broken telephone. Up until recently the story would have gone something like this: “mom got really mad one morning during the summer when we were growing up. So mad that she took the landline telephone and slammed it against the post in the kitchen thereby breaking it.” Now I can see the story from a different angle. She had been stuck at home with us all summer, the car was broken and she had spent all morning trying to coordinate a ride so we could still go to swim practice thereby giving her a moment of peace and quiet to herself, something she rarely got over the summer.  After the ride was organized we then proceeded to tell her we weren’t going to swim. We didn’t want to.  Hence the broken phone.  (I am sure I am taking some artistic liberties here so mom feel free to correct me).  

So fast forward to current day where I recently experienced a moment of such frustration and annoyance that my skin felt like it was crawling and I needed to scream (the cause of this feeling is still unknown but I can tell you it was not to the level of the logistics my mom went through all those summers ago and was probably just PMS). Thankfully I was able to feel the rage coming (that plus I didn’t have a phone to break) so instead of completely losing it (which I really wanted to) I told the family I loved them but was in a terrible mood, I grabbed a bottle of wine and went the bedroom to enjoy a quiet moment by myself.

Love you mom