In which I become my mother.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/piercedavid/5436451728/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Sometimes I call my sister for the sole reason of telling her that I'm becoming Mom. She's the only one who can fully appreciate what this means and why it's so scary and bizarre.

Obviously becoming my mom isn't a completely bad thing. But what is scary is how much sense it makes. The things that I thought I'd never do because they drove me crazy when my mom did them suddenly seem like reasonable responses to certain situations. Even if I don't choose the same behavior as my mom did, it is still strange to me that I can now look at her choices and see why they made sense to her at the time.

Being the mother of four kids, its no surprise that my mom needed a cup of coffee to get her going most mornings. We lived within spitting distance of a Dunkin Donuts, so many days before she carpooled us and other kids to school, she'd drive up and make me get out and get her coffee for her. I remember her collecting a quarter, a nickel, and a dime from the gunked up minivan cupholder (because back then a small coffee cost 40 cents if you can believe that.) I was a shy kid, so going into a restaurant alone and talking to strangers was about my least favorite thing to do. But I had a script: "One small coffee with cream and sugar on the side." The Indians who owned the place (and later gave me my first job) usually already knew what I wanted and often had it ready before I got there (something about two older brothers coming in with the same request for years before me....), so at least they made it easy on my poor shy self.

At some point I came to mildly resent my mom's coffee addiction. We'd be running late some morning (and I hate running late) but it didn't matter--she needed her coffee and was going to get it. Later I remember telling myself that I never want to need something to get me going in the morning. So I casually avoided coffee as I began my adult life. Even after Ivy was born and I was sleep-deprived to the point of sometimes literal insanity, I never turned to coffee because I just didn't want to need it to function.

For some reason though, this year I started drinking coffee. Something strange clicked in me I think. It's like this thing that seemed so ho-hum for 20+ years suddenly became completely blissful and I can't get enough. I'm considering filing a lawsuit against CoffeeMate for putting some sort of addictive substance in their creamers, because, man, are they delicious! So I guess I don't drink it for the caffeine, but it is a nice side benefit. And it does (gulp) help me wake up in the mornings.

Ah! I am my mom!

Telling Ivy not to touch the hot rollers was the
 moment I realized I was no longer myself, but,
in fact, my mother. Also, this is a
"myspace" photo--aka, obviously self-taken
in front of a mirror and at the best possible angle.