I'm proud of my mom. She just broke up with her loser boyfriend who, among his many other charming qualities, has no job, sleeps all day, and lays the heaviest sets of judgment on people he doesn't even know. I say good riddance. He can take his inferiority complexes and bad attitude somewhere else. She doesn't deserve them. For a number of equally valid reasons, it seemed like such an achievement for her to dump his freeloading ass. First of all, she's never been the most forthcoming person, or even the type to say "no" to people. She aims to please and is scared of rejection, which leads her down the path of finding the absolute deadest of deadbeats as love interests, or, perhaps more truthfully, someone to sleep next to at night. I think she forgets sometimes that her life is HERS and not someone else's to do with as they please. She forgets that she deserves happiness in its fullest and that it's completely within her power to gain it.
But what she lacks in independence she makes up for in fervor. She's generally happy with her life, always looking for her next adventure, sometimes dreaming too far ahead of herself, and by that I mean that she doesn't always follow through with her intentions. A lover at heart and a worker til she dies, my mother has every right to be proud of herself for taking another step in the right direction, for not letting some idiot unwittingly steer her life.
I speak from experience. The reason I analyze my mom so critically is because I'm just like her. I can observe all my imperfections, stupid habits, and sometimes absurd thought patterns just by observing her. I tell people that if I were a 40-year-old woman, I'd be my mother.
Summertime has been cathartic for me. I like living with my mom because now that whatshisface is out of the picture, it's just me, her, and my kitten Gandhi. The days are languid and sunny. The weeks drag on for eternity, and I kind of like it that way. Having a lot of alone time presents me with the constant dilemma of solitude--I'm forced to either be happy with myself or be lonely, and I've been having surprising luck with keeping a positive, peaceful outlook on my life as of late. My job is monotonous yet fulfilling. Every time I leave I feel refreshed. That's irony for you... Washing dishes for five hours straight seems to keep my busy mind occupied and leaves out any room for pesky thoughts. Even though I'm covered head to toe in sweat and kitchen grime, I always feel at peace when I drive away from the restaurant, long after the sun has gone down over the island and the weekenders are lighting their fireworks and partying on pontoon boats.
Finding simplicity and balance has been easier than getting a tan.
Looking up at the stars on warm summer nights like this makes me feel poetic. Sadly, though, I can't write poetry for the life of me. Instead of being poetic, I'm stealing wifi from a metallurgical laboratory. Sounds intense, but all that really means is I'm sitting on asphalt across the street from our house on my laptop.
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