Mami y yo

Mami y yo, Disney World 1985.

I am just in the mood to say something about my mom and the infinite possibility for someone to blow your mind when least expected. My mind has been blown by my mom this past week.   Me, her only daughter who has quite possibly done almost absolutely everything she has ever explicitly asked me NOT to do.  It wasn't rebellion, anything a part of my life has never been about that.  It has always been about the desire to become who I intrinsically knew I wanted to be and this unfortunately caused some distress for my poor mom and friction in our relationship, which we have gratefully passed many years ago.   But my mom is still unabashedly Republican and I am still unabashedly an Anarchist.  My mother who I knew once I acquired a master's degree from an ivy league institution would hope it would change me.  She still hopes I buy a condo, even when I tell her I want to build my own home and marry a doctor even when I tell her it is highly unlikely I will ever legally marry. This week I was complaining to my mother about how working 40-50 hours a week has reduced me to a frazzled wire. Let me be clear my job is the most lovely of jobs that can be dreamed up by a POC anarcho-punk like myself.  My schedule is lax, my boss is a vegan bike rider who lets me have days off to go to radical food conferences and  I work on a rad project with people of color and in a community of color. It is a dream job but my rolling stone tendencies have led me to feeling socially, spiritually and physically claustrophobic in this tiny office of mine.  At the end of my complaints I say "I'm sorry Mami. I feel like such a brat after you and Papi have been dong this for decades and I am in this game for half a year and can barely take it. My retirement from this life is eminent."  My mother replies, "It's okay Tina.  You are you and you have different needs and a different standard of living than me and your dad. You have to do what works for you."  I love the heck out of this woman because she is a much chiller mom than the one of my child hood in that I know she has intentionally set out to become a better person and to grow.   Which gives me confidence despite the middle class bourgeois aspirations she always has had for me, that she will be happy to come live with me in her old age at the commune we both know I will end up at. A thought I think we are both secretly excited about. Even in the most disgruntled of times, we have to know everyone (this is you and everyone you know) is capable of growth and change. We all inspire each other.  Lastly, talking to my mom about my new work out regimen and the addiction of jogging I would hear people talk about but never really believed until now,  my mom says to me "Yea sometimes when I am on a walk I like to sprint.  It makes me feel like an animal, like a bear running through the woods".  Fuck yes, sheer bliss.  What more can you ask from a parent than for them to support every crazy scheme you have and to tell you that sometimes they like to feel like an animal running through the woods?