My mom told me recently that some of the things I've posted about my attempts to be more environmentally conscious on our "family" blog have really made her think and act differently. I don't think anything (other than Ezra) has made me feel so good recently. If I can make my MOM think differently, I must be doing something right! Of course she still lives in a neighborhood that requires the FIRST floor of any home being built to be AT LEAST 2800 square feet. Um, can you say McMansion? Does one couple really need four bedrooms, a "media" room, a "billiards" room, and a study, in addition to all of the regular rooms that come with a typical large house ? But she did choose to buy a regular (luxury) sedan rather than the SUV she really wanted, and she gives me a lot of the credit for making that choice.
I've actually really come to have a lot of respect for my mom over the last few years. She went from a 17 year old mother who had never left her small upstate NY town, who, when moving to Houston thought for certain life in the big city meant I would be kidnapped, she would be raped, and we would be mugged on a daily basis (except we were moving to the big ol' scary suburbs!) to a woman who has worked her way up to an impressive position in a huge Fortune 100 corporation that requires her to travel all over the world. Whereas she used to think shrimp was a disgusting thing to eat, she has now feasted upon many unusual foods considered delicacies in several Asian countries. And over time I've witnessed her perspective of the world shift from one that was very narrow to one that recognizes and understands that there is a wide variety of "normal" in this world, and that people who do not live the way she does are not always wrong or bad or frightening.
I also love love love the grandmother she is to Ezra. She is amazing with him. She approaches him gently and allows him to warm up to her. She plays with him with the understanding that he is a one year old toddler, not a monkey meant to be trained and used for our amusement. She is fun and enthusiastic with him, and he really responds to her. I love seeing them together and wish they could hang out more often.
It's amazing to me that I feel inspired to write something this glowing about my mother. My childhood, teenage and young adult diaries are filled with page after page of vitriol directed toward her. We so truly did not get along. I never felt like I ever did anything to please or impress her. But I think she finally accepts that I want different things out of life than she does, that I have different ambitions and different ways of doing things. And I think she might even respect that. And maybe I finally respect those things about her.
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