That's what she said yesterday when our shopping spree took a turn for the worst.

My mom and I went on our second (SECOND!) leg of shopping yesterday and that's what she said to me after I reverted to my 16 year old self and started to bitch when she tried to return a pair of shoes and the store clerk took forty five minutes and six registers to do the deed. I uttered the words, "If I knew this was going to happen," eying the clerk with disdain, "I would've stayed home and laid out." As soon as I uttered the words, I wished them back into my head but they had already spewed out of my mouth. My mom's eyes welled with tears and she said quietly, "When I'm done with this, you can take me home. And . You. Can. Go. Layout." What she really mean was, "when I'm done with this, you can take me home, and then you can go to Hell!"

We left the store and she whispered in a soft hurt voice, "I can't believe I wasted my day off trying to spend time with my daughter. It happens every time I try, you revert into yourself and become this sullen child. I love you, but I maybe we don't have to like each other." And with that, I started to cry right in the mall. "C'mon Mom, I'm sorry! I don't really want to lay out, I want to go to the book store!" (which was the next place on our itinerary).
"No! Just take me home!"

We got in the car, both of our eyes spilling quiet, painful tears that burned both of our faces. I kept pleading with her, "I'm sorry, I was being bitchy! I didn't really mean to aim it at you! Forgive me and let's get back to our day together?!?" But the damage was done. And then she uttered a phrase that had been seven years in the making,
"I know that you wish I had died instead of your dad...". (silence).
"Mom, you know I don't really think that..." (silence)


***minor bickering bounces back and forth that's not worth mentioning because it was petty***

"Stop here, I want to get you and John some vegetables." So I pulled off to the vegetable market and was confused that she even wanted to fill my fridge with veggies when this emotional firefight was going on. But deftly she moved through the small aisles and picked something out, pointed to certain things and even said, "Oh, you love sugar snap peas, let me get some of those for you!" I followed her confused, and watched her as she picked up all my favorite veggies and tossing them in the box. It was strangely comforting. I felt like it was meant to be comforting after all the harsh words...all the true (mostly--minus that one statement) words.

I dropped her off and I tried to focus on reading a book, I couldn't. I just cried, sending John a terse text message stating, "I just got into a bad fight with my mom. It was my fault :(" He called me immediately from work but I couldn't talk, I just cried, whimpered out a few sentences and then when he asked if I was going to be alright I just mumbled a tear filled, "I don't think so" and we ended the conversation because I couldn't talk and he couldn't make it right. I knew that he would hold me later and let me cry into his shoulder.

She called me a little later and we finally talked. For years we've been dancing around the subjects of my father's sudden death, me moving out, her getting a boyfriend, and all the rough spots in between. Both of felt abandoned by the other, loving each other from afar but rarely speaking our true minds when we'd get together. Yesterday brought all of that to a head, and I think I'm grateful for it. I never realized until she said it, "Your dad died and then you left me." (I lived with her for almost three years and then bought a house when I was 25 or 26) And then I was alone." I hadn't pictured her alone. I thought I had moved out because she was ready for me to do so. It appears that she wasn't...and it wouldn't have hurt me to stay with her a little longer. There was no pressing reason for me to move out, other than I felt inept with the fact that I was still living with my mother and all my friends were out building their lives. I wasn't really ready to move out either...events that followed my leaving her, proved that. It was almost as if I was begging to be taken back in. But I would've refused to go, and it appeared that she had moved on...by dating.
And we continued talking and making plans about starting over and dealing with my issue of keeping her at an arm's length--her death would kill me as much or more than my father's and about rebuilding our family. We focused less on shopping sprees and talked more about her and her boyfriend (whom I also kept at way more than an arm's length) coming over to dinner to share in my newfound culinary talents and simply making a present rather than living in what used to be and then getting angry that neither of us fit our past expectations.

We made up for the present and now I think we are going to start healing our past.