There are reasons in this world who are worth getting out of
bed for, no matter how bad you feel.
The first reason that I get out of bed every day is the
fact that if I don’t, I’ll have to deal with my mother.
I make it a point to
never have to deal with my mother, if
I can avoid it.
I know that sounds mean, but hear me out.
I love my mother. I love her more than I can express
(without making anyone else jealous), but she’s my mom. She’s the one who
remembers every damn thing I’ve done wrong in my entire life. Everything. She
also has no problem reminding me of every, single, solitary one of them.
Individually and repeatedly.
We had a family holiday get together over Easter and we were
sitting on her deck chatting and she remarked how I am terribly senile for my
age. I laughed and looked at my adoring family members and proceeded to blurt
out the most hilariously inappropriate thing that I could have possibly said to
her.
“Yeah! You’re the one needs to be senile, but no! You
remember shit from 40 years ago!”
Fortunately, she has a wonderful sense of humor, as do the
majority of my extended family. After it was said, there was raucous laughter,
jubilant agreement, and amused muttering.
See, my mom is pretty special. She survived the death of a
husband, raising me, working in the insurance industry (which is a feat in
itself), breast cancer, and a heart attack. The kicker is, she still has the
energy to piss me off and remind me of what I could have been.
Yes, I realize she just wants me to be successful, but what
she doesn’t realize is that I suffer from depression. I don’t talk to her about
it, but that’s only to save myself the lectures about what I should and shouldn’t
do.
I’d rather just deal with her like I always do. With humor and sarcasm.
Luckily, it’s not hard to do. We both have a very twisted
sense of humor. It comes out when we least expect it. It also makes for some
pretty fun conversations.
The kicker on this one? She can remember every single one of
them. I cannot.
My memory is like a slow fog on a lake.
It’s deep, but patchy. You can see parts of the lake, but
never the whole thing at once. The fog rolls from one side of the lake to the
other, exposing it in bits and pieces that are constantly changing. Someone can
give you a description of the view that should be there in order to help fill in the
gaps, but the lake is not whole while the fog remains.
My mom is the one who fills in the gaps.
I sat here tonight thinking about things. Trying to remember
third grade and came up with nothing.
I thought to myself, “Eh, that was thirty-five years ago.
Not a big deal.”
So I moved further into the future, high school. I remember
doing things. I remember who I was friends with. I remember who I dated, but I
struggled to come up with any solid memories of any events over the course of
the four years I was there.
My mom remembers. She remembers all of my special events.
How I looked, who I went with, the first time she saw a hickey on my neck (to
this day she still refers to him as Hoover lips), the fights, the struggles.
She remembers it all and as I sit here writing this, unless I have the photos
sitting in front of me, I can’t recall details.
She can recall the first time I missed curfew and how she
hauled my boyfriend’s friend out of the window of his car and threatened him if
it ever happened again. She remembers how mortified I was. I don’t.
She’s my rock, and if I didn’t get out of bed in the
morning, she’d call and call and eventually show up, come in the house, yell at
me about what a wreck it is and how I’m slacking off, and to get my lazy ass
out of bed. Then, she’d cook me pancakes.
She’s definitely the first reason I get out of the bed in
the morning.
~Kim
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