Things I've learned from my mother

In most countries, it's Mother's day tomorrow, on Sunday 12th. I love my mother, she's amazing, although we are very different. We live alone, just the two of us plus our two cats, and it's the best living solution we've had, as I've personally had several odd living situations in my life, ever since my parents divorced in 2008. There have been times when I've lived in five different places at once, and it's exhausting beause I was always packing and unpaking to go to another place.

I've learned a lot from my mother, but she's also taught me what not to do. Since we are two adults, we share most of our chores. One does the laundry one week and the other next time. We usually cook together, or we take turns. She's in charge of things like picking a new table from Ikea, because I hate decorating, but there is no way I will let her touch anyhting from the tool box. She once tried to put a picture on the wall and ended up drilling her hand without noticing it. It's been over three years since then, and I do all the renovating, painting and drilling in our house because I just don't trust my mom with tools. 

As I said, she's taught me a lot, and one thing I can enjoy daily, is cooking. Yes, I learned to feed myself when I was eight-ish, but she was the one who told me how to actually make food taste like something and not just eat cup noodles each day. I hate to brag, but I make great food, and that's thanks to my mom letting me try and teaching me tips like how to break the garlic to get more flavour or that in case you are out of wine for risotto you can also use a lemon. It's the simple things, really.

Another thing I'm grateful for, is her teaching me about the value of money. A lot of parents buy things for their kids, even useless things, and I totally think that's just shitty. Yes, I get fifty euros a month from my mom, but actually this is the last month ever, because in three weeks, she legally doesn't even have to take care of me. Plus, I'm going to work full day in a month, so she doesn't even have to. 

Seriously, a lot of people my age move out and realize that hey, a week's worth of food costs money. I actually buy most of our groceries, and usually we split it. The reality that eating a frozen pizza each day costs a lot and isn't very healthy hits a lot of people in the face when they move out. Or that rent costs and water costs. I'm glad I know how to manage my money and that I actually know how much money I will have to spend on things. 

I'm very different than my mom. We look the same, at least according to other people, but I'm more like my dad when it comes to things we like. We used to disagree a lot when I was a little younger, but nowadays we don't. That's kind of led me to think that if I ever have kids (ew, I hope not, kids are shit) I'll never fight with them like we did. We're very different like that, because she can yell, but I never do. If I'm mad, I'll just stay quiet and talk later. If I ever have kids, I hope that I won't yell at them, because honestly, I never yell at people when I'm angry. Safe for trying to make a point to my drunk friends when they are stupid. On most cases, I never think that fighting is properly done when people yell at each other, and usually I just shut up and say I will talk to the person when they shut up, calm down and listen. 

She's taught me that people really don't need parents. I haven't had a dad for years, and I've never been happier. I don't mind that he's alive, but I doubt it would make much difference if he weren't. I laugh at the people who think people need both parents to grow up. You'll manage fine without, and there are most likely other adults in your life. I for example have like five middle-aged women who are like aunts to me, two of them actually are, and they are quite odd, each one, but they've all been like parents to me at some time.

She's taught me that some people worry about weird things. She does, a lot, and that's another difference between us. I'm quite realistic, and don't worry about things that are unlike to happen. I'm more pratical, in a sense. I trust that things usually work out fine, and if they don't, that sucks but there's nothing we can do. A good example of her worrying is the fact that she's scared of flying. Not much, but she doesn't like it. We were on a plane just a few weeks ago, and wow, it was a horrible flight. The landing was full of turbulence, and the plane hit the ground rather harshly. She was super scared, which to me was odd, because I've never been scared of flying. I don't understand people who are. But she was almost crying, while I just almost threw up becuse it was awful. I'm not scared of flying because the chances that anything will happen are small. Same like when I had a heart surgery as a 11-year-old. She was scared shitless, while I was like, well, I don't mind. I tried to comfort her with the fact that they were only changing my pulmonary valve, unlike when I was a baby when they did a lot of other things too. Same when I tried commiting suicide. A few hours later she was scared I might accidentally drop dead, so I had to explain her some basic chemistry that if I were going to die, it would've happened already because that's how the chemical included works.

I love my mom and while she annoys me about half of the time she's awake, and especially when she's asleep because I can hear her snore from her room and it drives me crazy, I wouldn't change her. She's reasonable, most of the time, and lets me be quite independent. I can come and go, mind my own business but if I need her help with anything, she's glad to do so. All of you have a nice Mother's day and buy your mom something nice.