Another Year

And so tonight is the last night here, in the bed of my child hood, in the home of my mother until next Easter and another year has passed. I have bought too much and have too many heavy things to carry and will not remember much of it in my drugged out state when my plane lands on Sunday and I trek eastward to Hackney.

I sit by my mother and she doesn't listen to me. She talks at me and my mind wanders. I think, "She could die you know, this could be some of the last time you have together, she could cease to be as a person, one day she will only be a memory." And I feel sad. I often feel that I can't reach my mother. That we somehow stopped really understanding each other a long time ago. But that's probably not true. We just push each others buttons. Not even on purpose, just by being who we are.

Yesterday I was supposed to go out to meet a friend but she had to cancel, so I didn't get out at all. So I didn't take out the recycling she had asked because I never put my shoes on to go downstairs and outside. When she got home she said, "I see you didn't take the recycling out." then she said "Why did you leave dirty dishes in the sink!?!" And here I must point out that I left the rice cooker and cover because I wasn't sure if it went in the dishwasher or she washed it, but my dishes that I ate on were in the dishwasher and I pointed out as much. Then she started yelling at me about how I know she doesn't like to come home to dirty dishes and I pointed out that I didn't know what she did with those and now that I knew that was fine. She was being horrible really, so I got up and put the rice cooker in the dishwasher. Then she came back and started yelling about how I only did my dishes and not her two mugs she'd left in the sink. "That's funny," I said, "because if I'd gone out and hadn't eaten here then you still would have come home to your own dirty dishes sitting in the sink so what the fuck is your problem, stop being such a fucking hypocrite!". Can you see how we have problems?

But it doesn't mean I don't love my mother, of course I love my mother and she loves me. But we are very different sorts of people. And maybe that's hard on both of us.

It's my last night at home and tomorrow I leave. Funny how I call this place home when it hasn't been my home since I was 18. Do I mean the States 'home' when I say home? Do I mean this home? I've always said I never really feel like I have any sort of home. But if I were to think about it, I feel that my home is waiting for me in London. I guess I won't have to deal with these sorts of thoughts for another year.