Love Your Mother

I love my Mom.

We don't always get along. In fact we have had some pretty bad arguments in our day, but what Mother/Daughter duo hasn't?

For those of you that don't know her, let me tell you a bit about my Mom.

My Mother's ancestry is a nice little mixture of Cherokee and Irish. She was born and raised in Tyner, Kentucky and is the eldest of five children. She practically raised her brothers and sisters from the time she was nine years old. I'll not go into details here as to why that is, but just know that its the truth. She grew up poor, but it made her strong and determined to have a better life one day.

There are things I still don't understand about my Mother. Things she does and says that drive me batty. We definitely don't always see eye to eye, but I still love her.

She has her faults but we all do and its taken me some time to come to terms with the fact that neither of my parents are perfect. They just are who they are and we all try to get along.

Which I have to say, getting along with my Mother has been a lot easier since I started my new job. I'm not home when she's at home. We get along perfect that way. :-) See my shift is from 4:30 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. She leaves for work at 6:30 in the morning and doesn't get home until 4:30 or so. We don't really see each other until my days off and on Sundays. This makes for a lot more pleasant quality time together.

And we've been spending a lot more quality time together as well. She was my concert buddy last weekend in Lexington. Nothing quite as fun as seeing your prim and proper (because trust me, she is a lot more prim and proper than me) Mother getting soaked in a downpour at a country music concert. Well...maybe the fact that I also got her a wee bit drunk and tried to get her to dance and sing along with me added to the fun quotient. My Mom just doesn't do that sort of thing and I've decided I'm a bad influence on her because I always try to get her to do stuff like that. :-) I paid for the concert of course. It was my treat. She's 46 and has never been to an actual concert and I felt like it was time that she had that experience. She had a blast. Next time she wants to try a rock concert, but I'm not sure she's ready for that just yet. ;-)

Next week we are high-tailing South over my break from school. We're going to the Big Easy. One of my favorite places in the world. This will make our third trip to New Orleans. I love that city. This year we are getting a place right in the French Quarter and Mom's best friend Louise, and one of my good chums, Hattie, are going with us. I'm doing all the driving and planning, like I always do, but in return Mom has promised to make sure that I make it back to the hotel if I get too tipsy to know where I'm going. :-) She's good about stuff like that.

I could go on and on about what a groovy chick my Mom is, but I'll not bore you to tears with that. I'll not make you sad with any stories about the bad times either. But since Halloween will soon be here, I think I need to tell you this much about my Mom. She is the reason I'm the way I am when it concerns Halloween and anything science fiction or horror. I owe a great deal of gratitude to her for that.

From as far back as I can remember, Mom has always watched shows like Star Trek, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Tales from the Crypt (on the rare occasion we could actually afford HBO), and all manner of anything sci-fi or horror. I've been watching scary movies since I came out of the womb. Mom loves Star Wars too, so I grew up on those movies as well. Some of my favorite movies are the cheesy B-movies with clay-mation monsters and names like "Food of the Gods" because they all make me think of my Mom. I was never allowed to stay up late unless a movie like that was coming on, then she would make special allowances (even on school nights) and set up and watch them with me.

My bedtime stories were ghost stories that she had heard or had experienced herself. Mom is famous for such stories. She can scare most people with the tales she tales. I learned that from her too. That's part of the reason why I love to write so much. I have a binder full of my short stories from the time I was old enough to write on up through high school. Most of them horror stories. I have my Mother to thank for that.

Mom only really reads two types of books. Romance novels (YUCK!!!) and horror novels (YAY!!!). I wasn't much interested in the romance junk as a kid, but I used to beg and beg for the horror novels. She never let me read them. I had to make due with Goosebumps and Fear Street from the school library. I was in high school before she turned over her horror collection to me. It was a small collection, but I've added to it immensely through the years. She borrows horror books from me now. Both of our favorite kinds are zombie stories. I get my love of all things zombie from her too. (Note: This weekend "Zombieland" opens. Mom, Dad, and my brother, Dillon, and I are going Saturday to watch it as a "family movie night." Is it strange that "family movie night" revolves around horror movies? Or that "family TV night" happens to revolve around a show like "Supernatural"? I hope not.) One of our favorite activities when we travel together is to plan for zombie attacks. As in, "If a zombie attack happened right now, what would you do?" Its a great way to keep yourself entertained and keep your imagination going while you are stuck in traffic, believe me.

Mom used to dress up as a witch and chase me around the house too. It didn't matter what time of year it was or what time of day either. If I asked nicely enough (i.e. if I begged and whined), then she would lock herself in the bathroom until she was ready. I would wait eagerly outside the door. When she opened it up I would take off in terror. She would chase me through the house and through the yard, doing her evil witch laugh and I would scream and shriek like a banshee. I was serious too. The game always ended with me crying and begging her to take the outfit back off and never put it on again (only, of course, to do the same thing a week later).
(Mom, Halloween last year)

Mom doesn't brag on me often, she doesn't want me to "get the big head" but when she does, she means it. I've done a lot of things that she didn't get to do and I'm a completely different person from her. I graduated high school, graduated college, I have a "career" rather than a "job", I still live in JC, but its not something permanent. I pay for my own way in life. I don't ask anyone for anything and I don't take crap off of anyone. I'm not afraid to go after whatever it is that I want. I travel. I speak my mind. I'm not afraid to look stupid or make a mistake. Mom is some of those things and some of them she's not. But I've learned how to do those things from watching her. Good or bad, I've learned who I want to be and who I don't want to be, partially from my Mother. And I can't help but to love her for that.


(Mom and Me, back in the day)