Happy Mother’s Day everyone! If you’re looking for something cheerful, move along.

I have issues with mother’s day, unfortunately, because I have issues with my mother. She is the reason this blog is anonymous/pseudononymous. I probably shouldn’t worry about that since the other day, she said to me, “When I start up the internet, I see this Google thing. Am I paying for that?”

My mother and I have never gotten along. I am honestly jealous of people, like Profgrrrrl, who have good relationships with their mothers. Of course, I’d have to have a completely different mother first. I tolerate her now–and of course I love her the way you love any relative–but I really just don’t understand her. Since I was very young, my mother has pushed me to be things I’m not, to try to fit me into whatever her vision of what I should be is. She’s still doing this, though thankfully, she can’t force this the way she used to. The results now are a complete talking past one another and not understanding where the other person is. A simple example. My yard. My mother is coming to visit and wants to work in my yard. She has no understanding of my not caring about my yard and my tiny postage stamp size of a yard. I have a feeling she will gasp when she sees it. Her working in the yard is not what I have issues with; it’s her not listening to me. She’ll say, maybe you need a small tree then. And I’ll say, As I said before, there wouldn’t be room for that. You can see how this would be a big problem on bigger issues. She’s still going to try to turn me and my yard into the epitome of suburban living. Which I really, really don’t want. I’m still holding out the possibility that she won’t gasp or make some backhanded compliment and will just plant some plants. Who knows. It’s probably more my issue anyway.

I just feel uncomfortable around my mom. I’m sort of constantly afraid that we’ll end up fighting. I try my very best to let her comments slide, but sometimes the 100th comment the needles me is impossible to ignore.

Mr. Geeky said, after our last visit, that he thinks she’s the same person she was at 25. That kind of makes sense to me since as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten a little less tolerant or distant. I’m 37 and want a mom who knows what 37 is like and I’m not sure she does. She’s 60 going on 25.

Part of me wonders why I care. Why don’t I just write off our relationship and move on? But then there’s Mother’s Day and birthdays and holidays and we have to go through the motions of pretending we like each other. Sigh.

And I know I should be thankful to have a mom who cares about me, because it could be worse. But when what you’ve got kind of sucks . . .

And, of course, I worry about my own role as a mother. Am I going to repeat the same mistakes? Are my children going to feel the same way about me when they get older? And how the hell do you prevent that anyway?