THE 26 YR OLD UMBILICAL CORD

I was thinking a few days ago of the umbilical cord that my mom kept after my birth (don’t ask me why) and proceeded to show to me when I was 6 years old. I remember it so clearly! (Believe me I wish I didn’t) It was a small shriveled piece of brown meat that looked like cat poop and had me running to the bathroom to throw up my corn flakes.

I know I just complained about my mother who smacked me in the head and made me go to work with a welt on my forehead after I sassed her (her own words) and the fact that dear the husband and I have a lack of spontaneous sex because of the parental unit in the house but now that my move is getting closer and closer (only four more days) I am suddenly filled with anxiety for myself, my husband (who I am sure will grieve the lack of empanadas) and my mom.

I have never, ever, EVER lived alone. I have never been the sole responsible person for a household. I have never gone grocery shopping without my mom or without shopping just for a few things that we ran out of. I don’t know how to buy meat. I don’t know if $5.00 a pound is too expensive or if the meat will be hard or soft (which my mom can figure out by just looking at it) I am not possessed of those meat foretelling powers. I have never purchased cheese and ham that is not pre-packed. I have never been in charge of paying electricity bills, water bills etc. They were always in my mom’s name and when I married they were to my husband’s name and he was in charge of remembering to pay them.

I am suddenly overwhelmed by the many things that will soon become my responsibility: cleaning the house (my husband doesn’t even know where we keep the duster and we lived in this house for a whole year) grocery shopping (he’ll end up buying all the cheap generic stuff that taste like crap), doing laundry (he shrunk all my dresses) cooking… (Okay so he’s a pretty good cook) and just being in charge of a house on my own.

As I packed yesterday I felt horrible knowing that my mom would probably go to sleep Saturday night and cry in her bed because her youngest child has finally left the nest, and even though I rationally know that my leaving is way overdue I still feel completely and utterly horrible knowing she’ll feel sad and just a little bit lonely.

My mom is a super mom, you know the one that works full time and comes home to make dinner for their grown ass children. My brother, who lives a block away, comes almost every day for a dinner she cooks after 8 to 10 hours of cleaning other people’s houses. She cleans, she does laundry, she sneaks in my room and makes my bed (some days I have felt tempted to leave a dildo and some handcuffs hanging from the headboard just so she would stay out of my room) and worries and worries and worries. My mom is a nurturer. Is something she cannot turn off even though her oldest child is 33 and her youngest 26. She can’t help it, she makes me ginger tea (ick & nast) when I get sick and checks my temperature when I have a cold, she checks on me and makes me chicken noodle soup even though I am married and old enough to vote, drive, get drunk, etc.

I feel like once I leave she will be drowned by this need she has to take care of people and nobody to take care of! So what am I going to do when there is no mom to cook me dinner? What am I going to eat for breakfast Saturday morning when I wake up at 10 and there is no delicious smell of empanadas? When am I EVER going to go through the process of making dinner?

By the time my mom was my age she had three children and a cheating husband. She was a teacher, mother, wife, maid, cook, doctor, nurse and everything in between, all done efficiently without complaint while nursing a broken heart.

I am starting this stage of my life so late I am afraid I am going to suck at it! I know how to cook and clean and everything but I am so used to sharing the responsibility that will become solely mine and I am afraid I am going to either kill my dear husband or run back to mom.

I know is lame, I know is cowardly, I know that I should have done this already and that I should be looking forward to this step with nothing but excitement and eagerness. But for the first time in my life I am going to fully be an adult and while the thought is thrilling some part of me is afraid. I wish my mom had someone, a boyfriend, a lover, a friend with benefits even a husband with whom she can share the pain of losing her baby daughter to adulthood. I wish I just didn’t give a damn.

But I do and I miss my mommy already.