Whatever you do, never live in half a double house...take it from me. Tonight for the first time in our (going on) five year relationship my neighbors came over and asked us to turn the music down. It was 6 pm at night, we were cleaning and vacuuming the house because our friends are coming over to play games and drink some beer (avoiding the bars y'all!).

Seriously, in all the times that I've had the music loud on, the parties I've thrown, and all the wacky things (and strangers) that I've done (ha ha, obviously the somewhat distant past) they picked tonight? Ah, the injustice of the world...oh and I thought John's vein in his forehead was going to burst as I asked him to turn it down.

I guess we're the bad neighbors in the relationship. I can't wait until we don't have neighbors for miles...that's a long way off I suppose.

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.

Because I have to join the rest of the world and go back to work next week, my friends, the BCTs and I decided to have one last hurrah...and by hurrah I mean, a potluck dinner and a few glasses of wine. Over email, I piped up that I would be happy to make Chicken Marsala, which is probably the tastiest thing I can make in all the world. So this afternoon I set to work. Proud of my culinary talents, I packed everything up in some Tupperware, I followed the directions to my friend's new home.

When I pulled up I saw that I was the first to arrive. Not strange, I'm obsessive about being early or on time. I grabbed my phone and called Kelly. "Hey, are you 101 or 110?" She paused and seemed confused. I repeated myself, "Is your house number 101 or 110?" Kelly replied, "101" but there seemed to be a question in her voice. "OK, well I'm here" I said cheerily.

She opened the door with a baby on her hip and her dog did his best to tell me that he was not amused by my presence. She smiled and said, "This is going to be really funny..." I set my chicken on the counter and said, "What is?"
"Well M, you're a week early. But just think, you can take your chicken home and share it with John and then you can improve on it for next week."

So yeah, I apparently like to be so early that now I arrive at events a week early.

I am an ass.

I started crying when John's sister was showing us the set up nursery which is absolutely gorgeous. John laughed at me and held me as I whined, "I want a baby...I want all this cool stuff!" His sister came back and the room and John asked if we could borrow some of the stuff when/if we decide to get pregnant and I hissed to him, "Won't my baby be special enough to get her own stuff?" and then bawled. I think hormones are dangerous things. I continued to cry even as John patted my back and told me that my baby could be as spoiled as I wanted--adding quietly, "Just like you are."

If only this was the least brattiest thing I did this weekend...if only.