The visit

Mom and I in Chicago this Summer

My mother is coming to visit. She arrives tonight and is staying through next Wednesday. Whew..sigh. I love my mom - but her visits stress me out so much.

Here's the backstory. I am the quintessential member of the black middle class in-between generation. We're just like any other first-generation American group, except our parents were born here. For me, this means straddling between the highly religious, family oriented, thrifty world of my mom's and the fun, spiritual not religious, consumeristic world of my (mostly white) peers. It's remembering that while I occasionally curse around friends - or at least lace my sentences with an effing or hella, that's not acceptable. It's remembering to hide my condoms and cigarettes and "toy" when she visits. It's remembering to call before a date to pre-empt any interruptions.

It is tiring. Extremely tiring. And I know, as I'm told any time she visits, that I'm a "grown-ass woman", but it's a lot easier to be a grown-ass woman when she's 2000 miles away. It's simplistic to think that I can just not do the necessary things - slip a curse word in here, leave the cigarettes I rarely smoke in the console of the car, and be open about who I spend time with. I know there are people who do that. People whose parents are open and understanding about premarital sex and cursing and whatever else. But I can't. Trust me - I can't. It's not like I could do that, tell her I'm a grown-ass woman and that be the end of it. No no no. I left a pack of cigarettes in my car years ago. I was 20. I'm still occasionally asked if I'm trying to "sneak and smoke." Ummmmm yeah - I'm 20something and live thousands of miles away...I don't have to sneak to smoke. I get regular lectures on the dangers (physical, like STDs, and emotional) of premarital sex...with the extra warning that it's going to send me to hell.

I am learning to give her a little more benefit of the doubt that she won't flip and just assert myself. I've finally admitted that I don't go to church, I don't want to go to church and I won't until I figure-out how I feel about church and God and religion. While she's hinted toward her disappointment a couple times (asking me if we were going to church this visit and how much she wants to), she's largely left me alone about it. I did tell her, ahead of time, of a trip to Tahoe with a guy I'd been kinda dating and she completely freaked me out by asking if I had cute undies and pajamas. I didn't tell her nothing happened on that trip.

And it's not just the superficial behaviors that I hide to gain her approval. Having her here, in my space, is a challenge. She hasn't arrived yet, but I'm exhausted from cleaning and planning and trying to show her that the sacrifices she made to raise me were worthwhile. In my own whacked out head, every visit is a referendum on my appreciation of everything I was given and an opportunity to ...I don't know....give her fodder for the parents' game of look what my kid is doing? show off my "maturity"? Lord only knows why I freak out so much about it. But I do.

So, she's visiting - for 8 days. Yes, I have everyday planned. Dinners, brunch, SFMoMA, Napa, a hike, the spa etc. Of course I'll be pissed when she wants to change most of it. And I have apartment stocked with goodies for her. Which I already slightly resent because she barely had any food in the house when I last visited her. But I really am happy she's visiting. Happy and stressed - but happy.