Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. The Easter Bunny brought me just what I wanted. It was the best Easter ever. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Finally, after responding to her usual, “Are you sure?”, with my usual, “Yes, Mom; I am sure”, we hung up our cell phones.
Another family holiday behind us. Whew.
The fact of the matter is: The so-called ‘Easter Bunny’ did not, in fact, bring me just what I wanted; it was far from the best Easter ever, and; I had a very long & ever-growing list of what more I could readily think of to ask for.
My mom’s the type that would land us homeless on the streets to make all my wishes come true. So, let’s keep that between us – and a roof over our heads, OK?
I sank back into the Greyhound bus seat, safe from bedbugs thanks to the protector sheet my mother placed there after spraying the whole area with germ-killing Lysol and wiping down the armrests, set belts and seat recliner buttons with Clorox wipes. “We can’t be too careful with Momma’s Little Princess now, can we”, she’d commented-to-more-than-asked me as I stood in the aisle, awkwardly blocking other passengers from interrupting her work zone, as asked-ordered of Mom-Boss-#1 Fan.
‘Yes, Mom; we can & are too careful’, I thought, but love for her wouldn’t let me say aloud to her. I didn’t want bedbugs more than a quiet life. So, I guess Mom was right. It’s always perplexing how that works out – even after 13.5 years of it in ever variation the great buffet of life had served to me, so far.
So, I turned my cell phone to silent mode & turned up my iPod Touch to play Taylor Swift’s limited edition CD from Target. That was one of the non-babyish Easter 2011 I truly did appreciate, unlike the silly stuffed animals & the small soft throw blanket in a pastel print & all the tiny wind-up toys I’d long outgrown but Mom kept surprising me with. At least she thought she was surprising me with them – after so many uninterrupted years of them being a part of the whole, they’d become expected, like being sore after a new workout. (((sigh)))
I sigh a lot. I have plenty to sigh about.
My dad broke my mom’s heart. He broke all our hearts. He broke his promise to us all. He dropped the ball. Good dads don’t drop the ball – my dad drops the ball – ergo: My dad is bad. (((sigh)))
I can’t bring myself to risk breaking what’s left of my mom’s heart by telling her I’m not a baby anymore. I can’t bring myself to ask her to stop treating me like a baby anymore. I can feel the truth about me always being her baby, but not a baby anymore. I can also feel how the way Mom treats me is like trying to fit size 10 shoes into a size 5 box. I’ve outgrown the shoes and the baby stuff. Still, my mom keeps trying to fit me into her image of me as her still-littler-than-I-really-am-now daughter. (((sigh)))
She won’t call again until the Kitchen-Aide timer she set with the bus’s travel time goes off. She’s particular about details like that. I relax, knowing this is some very rare totally “me” time!
I’m singing along with Taylor in my head when I start rummaging around in my vegan hoodie’s front pouch for any other “surprises” from Mom. Yes, I am also used to these “surprises”, too. The unsurprising surprise – The Mum Surprise – was one of her homemade breads, sliced thickly and spread with organic blueberries and organic cashew butter. I know, I know: A PBJ by any other name is just as “typical”, but these are her works of Art “just for me”.
I know the bread is made with the best ingredients & so are the fillings. My mom cares. My mom cares like she does just about everything: Overboard/too much/overwhelmingly.
