my role

Spring is finally here!

With spring comes my newly found friendship with capitalization. I've been thinking about it and have decided to try out capital letters for a change. I reserve the right to revert back to lower case in future posts, however. Consider yourself warned.

Despite the fact that spring is officially upon us - Mr. Palmer forgot to pull my car in the garage last night which meant i had to scrape frost off my windshield before I could drive to work. I'm not sure how I feel about frost on the first day of spring. Mother nature can expect to receive a strongly worded email this afternoon.

In other news, I had a pretty nice conversation with my Mom last night.

Sidenote: I know if I use "Mom" as her name it needs to be capitalized but if I say MY mom should it then be lower case? F-ing grammar.

And we're back. So while I was on the phone with Mary (take that, grammar) she brought up a fight we had about a month ago. It wasn't really a fight so much as it was me flying off the handle and yelling at her. I think I might have blogged about it when it happened. Anyway, she brought it up and asked me to "never get mad at her like that again." She said she felt she was really close to me and it was crushing to her for me to be so mean.

I was kind of taken back by this comment. While I've never felt completely close to my mom (lowercase!) I never considered that she might feel close to me. Maybe subconsciously I do feel close to her and that's why I get so upset about her treating me like a baby.

Sometimes I forget that my mom is going through a lot right now with everything going on my with my dad. She has her own issues but takes such good care of him - sometimes her own well-being gets overlooked. I can't imagine what it must feel like to watch your husband - the man you knew as a young, energetic person slowly deteriorate. I have a hard enough time watching it as a daughter, I can only imagine what goes through her mind.

Out of the three sisters my mom probably talks to me the most about everything going on. I'm not sure why she's chosen me to be her confidant but I'm at least happy she feels she has me to tell. It's hard sometimes though - to try and be strong and listen when she's telling me about cleaning out the house so she doesn't have to do it later "you know, if something happens to your dad." She always adds in, "I could kick the bucket before he does!" But we both know that's probably unlikely. It's scary how easy it is to hold it together while I talk to her. It wasn't until I was off the phone and later on that I let all the scariness flood out of me.

It is scary. And unknown. I feel like we're all being "prepared." My dad calls me now when it's raining to tell me he wishes I was there on the front porch with him. He makes sure to remind me of all the little moments we had when I was younger - sitting on his lap, tucking me in at night - the covers tightly tucked underneath me. We all make sure to come home for major holidays, Fathers Day of course.

We don't really know when our preparation will be no longer necessary. Nothing looks looming or dire at present but we've been told what is coming. It sits in front of us like a slow drip turning into a flood. As a daughter I am still weary of the role I play. There is a part of me which is quietly content with being the confidant and another part which wants to scream, cry and be the baby I sometimes get cast as.

Maybe I can request an understudy.