Momma

What is it about my mother that drives me crazy?

I know my mother loves me. In fact, I'm fairly certain she'd lay down in front of a speeding bus if it meant my life or hers.

But mayn! She can drive me nuts sometimes.

When I was married, at around year four she started gunning for grandkids.

It was subtle.

Little comments about how her friends were wondering when she'd hear the pitter patter of little feet. She of course, would turn to me with big sad eyes and say, "I have no answer."

The thing you need to know, is that my mom has this way of turning on those big sad eyes when she needs to.

A long time ago she tried to cry me into doing something.

I was tired and wouldn't budge.

I looked at her and said, "I'm not dad or C (my brother). This crying thing you do is not going to work on me."

It was the first time anyone had ever called her on this and she did not like it.

But, she did dry up those tears faster than I could say, "Manipulate."

Since then, mom and I have had a very different relationship. Things are just the way they are and neither one of us tries to hide behind pretense.

So, when the grandbabies campaign started it was pretty brutal.

Finally, I said to her, "If you don't stop - for every time you ask about babies, I'm going to add on another year of waiting."

And I did.

And then she realized I wasn't kidding so she quit.

But then I got divorced.

On the cusp of year nine of my marriage we ended it.

The promise of grandchildren is just about gone, for now.

See, when I was married I insisted that I just didn't want children.

The truth is, I did and I do.

It's not that my biological clock has started ticking.

It's more that I've finally allowed myself to admit, "Yes, I want children."

You think I don't love the promise of one day looking at a man and thinking, "I want my children to have your eyes." The thought of loving someone so much that I want to see that love and that man reflected on the faces of our children is enough to make me swoon.

But, right now I don't have a husband.

This, of course, is what mom's been bugging me about lately.

Lately, she's been assuring me that I will find love. That it's out there.

I think maybe she sees me as a little lost because I don't have J. Because I don't have a spouse or partner.

The truth is, I'm not looking for it right now.

I mean, yeah, if it comes along then great. But I don't feel incomplete because there's no man in my life.

If anything, I feel like I found myself again. (I know that sounds completely hokey, but that's really how I feel.) You know that line in Amazing Grace:

I once was lost, but now am found;

Was blind, but now I see.

That's what the last six months have been for me - for the first time in a long time I can see again.

I am dating someone, but that's just a thing - you know?

There's no pressure, no serious commitment and no talk about tomorrow or forever.

It's all about today and the fact that he makes me happy today and I make him happy today. Maybe he's not Mr. Right, but he's definitely Mr. Right Now.

I'm perfectly content with that.

So, when mom throws out the stuff about the fact that I'll find love it bugs me because the implication is that I won't be really, truly happy until there's a man in my life again.

And that, as my father would say,

"Is bullshit."