life off balance

i know so many pisces it’s crazy. at least three of my friends, travis, a lot of acquaintances. my mom was a pisces too. in fact, today was her birthday. she died when i was 23 and in my first year of law school.

i’ve been thinking about her a lot today. my day was pretty ordinary: i blogged, i worked, text messaged with a friend, i took a long walk at lunch to get a soy green tea frappe from java green, travis and i started painting our dining room. it was a nice day, nothing exciting. but i think my mom would have been excited to hear about it. i think she would be amazed to see me be such a successful and happy adult. she would have been proud that i have a job helping others, and even more proud that i’m good at it. it would have been nice if she could have seen that all the money she and my dad spent to send me to a liberal arts college actually paid off in the end. she would be in love with travis if she knew him. she’d be so thrilled to see me living in a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a wonderful man.

i have no idea what she’d think about the blogging and the text messaging and all the other new forms of technology that are such a part of my life. she never used email, never used a cell phone. i bet she’d get into it though, because i could send her little text messages and quick emails to say “hello” to help make up for the fact that i wouldn’t be calling her often enough. i’d buy her a PSP to play video games — she loved video games! back in the 80s, she was obsessed with going to the arcade, she and my dad both. i’d get sick of it way before they did and beg to go home! and playing the atari 2600 with them was even more boring — we’d play space invaders and i’d die after like 1 minute, and then i’d have to sit there for 20 minutes while they took their turn because they were so much better than me! i guess it’s good they didn’t patronize me by letting me win, but it was so boring to wait my turn. so if she were alive, i’d get her a PSP or a gameboy or something she could play old school games on.

i think she’d be really proud that i’m vegan. she was a very compassionate person. if she were around now, she would tell her friends about her daughter the vegan, and i’d tell them that it’s only because she was the one who raised me to be a compassionate person, and she’d be so happy and proud that she’d be practically bursting at the seams. that’s pretty much all she ever wanted in life, as far as i can tell — she wanted me to be happy and she wanted to be loved, most of all by me. i can’t say i did a very good job of giving her either of those things while she was alive. i was a typical teenager and young adult, with a smart mouth and a rebellious streak, and i honestly did not show her a lot of compassion or love. she gave me so much, but i was too selfish and wrapped up in myself to give much back.

in my early twenties, i had a lot of angst and anxiety about my place in the world. i’d always turn to my mom when i was sad or stressed and she’d always be there for me, even if i had been a bitch to her the day before. in those first few months of law school i was miserable and cried to her on the phone all the time. she must have been so worried about me. and then she died. she never saw me graduate law school. she never had the opportunity to come be a guest in a home that i own, or see me well-established in job that i enjoy. she never met the man that i am going to grow old with, the one that reminds me of her in so many ways with his incredible compassion and kindness. she never got to see the joyful, grounded, responsible person that i grew to be. worst of all, she never heard me thank her for giving me all of this, because without her i wouldn’t have any of it. and she never did get the love from me that she deserved.

i know it’s not my fault. i wasn’t a bad kid. my parents raised me to be independent, to follow my own path, to question authority. i wouldn’t be who i am today if i hadn’t previously been the girl who had no patience for her mom and no respect for her rules. it comes with the territory, and i think my mom knew that, as much as i hurt her sometimes. it just sucks that she never got to see the end result or have the opportunity to enjoy the love and respect and gratitude that i have come to have for her. i don’t know if i believe in any kind of afterlife but i hope there is one, so that she can see me writing this and know that i do love her and i do appreciate her and i am very very grateful to her.

happy birthday mom.

technorati tags: mom