mainsqueeze's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- so lucky, so strong, so proud I've been wanting, lately, to do something nice for my Mother. I don't want to buy her anything. She has enough stuff, boxes and boatloads and garagefuls of stuff. I don't want to take her to dinner, or to a movie. I want to do something really nice. Something significant. She came by today to take me to the library, and for whatever reason, seeing her made my chest ache. Literally. She's getting old. She has taken to dressing in all black lately, from the frames of her glasses to her socks. She thinks it minimizes her (already minimal) body- My Mother, especially when compared with me, has always been tiny, but her current boyfriend has her convinced that she is overweight. There is something inherently child-like about my Mom. She's forty-six years old, but occasionally I'll glance at her and feel less daughter and more mother. She trusts everybody, in the same way that most kids do. She's a little bit naive. A little bit too generous. This guy she's with now takes advantage of that generosity, and that naivete. That also makes my chest hurt. Literally. My sister and I are my Mother's only legacy. She had made a lot of very bad choices, passed up many wonderful opportunities, and turned down some of the darkest, most hopeless paths in life. It occurred to me sometime this week that if I don't make something of myself- if I take the same dark and hopeless paths- My Mother's pride in me, the eighteen years she spent encouraging me, working sixty hours a week to feed and clothe me will have been useless. When my Mother looks at me in that way she does, with teary eyes and a faraway smile and such love and respect on her face, I want it to be justified. I want to be something good enough for her. 1:31 a.m. - 2002-11-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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