“Jerk” I said under my breath as I changed lanes to get away from the vehicle that seemed to be doing the same thing to everyone. I wanted to keep a safe distance from him because I didn’t think that the way that he was driving was safe and I wanted to keep a safe distance from him.

I blinked a couple of more times and then a warm wet tear rolled down my cheek. There was part of me that worried that if I started crying that I wouldn’t be able to stop. I was exhausted, tired to my core and feeling like I had nothing to give.

“Is everything ok? Why are you so cold? Did I do something wrong” she said.

The question and statement rocked me back on my heels. I was confused and honestly a little offended. I read the message over and over and felt my body respond with agitation. 

“I wish that I were a mom like you, but I just am not” she said. 

I laughed as I was snapped out of my thought pattern about the scent I could smell and back into the conversation. I wrinkled my nose at her, solidly rejecting the pedestal that she was putting me on. 

I recoiled away from the phone. There was a huge part of me that wanted to ask for clarity. What did she mean by this statement, what issues? Who had she heard this from? As I allowed the space to feel all of my feelings I recognized a couple of things. First, it immediately brought up defensiveness for me and I knew this was based on my own bullshit.

She almost never gives me unsolicited advice. It was one of the things that I loved about her. Occasionally, someone will ask me how my mother and I navigate living so close and being so involved with each other's lives and not fighting. The answer is simple and it is a singular word, respect.

I could hear him walking towards my room and pulled myself from the dream state that I had been lost in. The door opened quietly and he walked towards the bed. 

“Hi baby” I said softly.

“Mumma, I need you” he said.

I slid from between the warm sheets and blinked my eyes as I tried to wake up. I followed him out of my bedroom and down the hallway towards his room.

I was lying on a mat at a workshop allowing the content of the course to move through all of me. As I lay there breathing and feeling everything that my heart, mind, body and spirit had to say I looked up and noticed him sitting on the couch not far from me. My focus shifted from myself to him as I watched him, at first gently and then intensely.

“Ugh” I said in a whiney voice.

“What?” he asked.

We had just gotten out of the shower and I was getting dressed. I had forgotten that I had thrown my favorite bra out just the day before because it had broken. 

“I don’t have a bra” I said while I looked through the bra options that I had in our room.

Picking you as my mother was one of the best decisions I ever made. I don’t have full memories of everything that happened before I came here to be human, but I have the deepest knowing that I hand-picked you. I could have picked anyone, but I picked you and I will pick you again.