and the race is on….

Ok y’all…

I am wrestling today, I swear. I am a 45 year old women ( please insert the “you don’t loooook 45″ comment here. Really, please)

I am grown. I pay my own bills. I have raised my own child. I have made major purchases at major department stores with major credit cards…hell I think I may even dated a major or two. But here I am wringing my hands in fits of frenzy because an impending visit will soon be upon my household.

Three little letters that strike terror and panic into my serene world.

MOM

She will be here in 6 days.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I do love my mother. There is really nothing more lovely than the softness of her green eyes when she is laughing. Her soft sueded voice and lightening fast wit are a very charming and disarming cocktail. Especially after she has unleashed a funny, tucks her chin and looks upward as if she shouldn’t have done it. She loves me. She loves anyone who needs a momma….and you just have to love her back.

No, really you HAVE to.

She was a strong woman. Sister was doing it for herself  long long before anyone ever sang about it, and she drug me along beside her by the chubby little wrist.

She left an alcoholic father and went right to an alcoholic husband. She did her best for 15 years. We left when I was 4. She worked full time, made most of my clothes and hers and kept a house so clean that if I ever decided to lay my tongue on the floor ( and I probably did) my mouth would have been cleaner than before I did it. She was a wonder woman in her younger days. A fireball of creativity, intelligence and she did it all on a diet of coffee, bouillon and saltine crackers.

She held herself to high accountability. Always on top of her game. Smart and pretty, and always on a diet.

She held me to it too. I had to be the best one there at every event. Grades above all else. I went on my first official diet at the age of 12. I weighed 127 and was 5’2”.

The problem: I am not my mother.

She, the Virgo: the taker of chaos and maker of order.

Me, the Aquarian: the maker of chaos and shaker of order.

For all of our differences we fight to love one another.

For all of our opposing qualities ( politics, religion, diversity)

we share equally as many similar qualities ( shopping, eating, stong will)

yeah…that last one kicks our asses, quite a lot.

I have never laughed harder than I have with my mom

I have never fought with anyone harder than I have my mom

I have never cried harder than I have with my mom

We are a duo of extremes.

I accuse her of being an energy vampire. She accuses me of being an ungrateful brat.

I beg her to be more positive and stop being so damned negative all the time.

She begs me to come home to Ohio.

This visit will be her first trip to Georgia. Oh the fights we had about my moving here. We still do it. The more she moans about my coming home the more I put off the trip. Part of me is looking forward to her coming. Part of me knows it will be a battle. Most of me knows that she will talk mostly about death and dying and when will she see me next. It will be a hard time for both of us. Me trying to be just right and she trying not to beat me to death. If there is a flaw she will find it. I am full of flaws….she knows where to look for all of them. And just like a mirror….she mirrors back to me the things about myself that I don’t love so much as well as the imperfections that are so glaringly obvious whenever she is around. It is some hard lovin, y’all. I am sweating just thinking about it.

But I do have high hopes…I really do…

I want her to see the beauty of the south. I want her to feel how delicious that sun feels on a winter lived body. I want her to appreciate the new things that I will show her. I want to share with her, my favorite, most interesting things. In my heart, I know that she will not take joy in these sparkly things, but see them as dark enemies that keep me from her.

I also know that they will not be good enough, just as I have not been good enough.

I pray everyday that she will wake up and just appreciate what the day has for her. She won’t dwell in the harshness of the past or in the bad things that people have done to her. She won’t look to the future and dwell in sickness and death. She will just wake up and notice  the sun is beautiful. She will come to see me with the joy of the laughter and the beauty of just being together. She will come to my home and see that I am happy. She will be glad for me. When we go outside she will see the magic in that grand Magnolia that is just about ready to burst forth in beautiful blossom, just in time for her visit. She won’t judge. She will just love. We will be grateful together for our time with one another.

I am gonna keep praying that prayer. It’s a good one. I really do mean it and say it will all the positive energy that I can send skyward.

But, just in case Jesus doesn’t come through…

I’m gonna keep on cleaning…hard. 🙂

Loving us all through it….y’all….yeah I’m not allowed to say y’all around her either. 🙂 hee hee

Smooch out …and pass the Pine-Sol, wouldja?

http://www.susanrushing.com