And lo, since today is Mother’s Day, it only makes sense I will write about her again.

But, the thing is, I already said a lot of the stuff one might normally say on Mother’s Day already, AND I did it in the form of a list, which knocks out two of my default settings for writing about things.

Last year, I even wrote her a letter. So that’s been done, too.

Sheesh.

In fact, one of the most popular searches that leads to my blog is “reasons I love my mom”.

Well, that and “look at my boobs”.

Ahem.

You’d think there was some serious awesomeness going on there or something.

(With my mom, not my boobs.)

But I could write every day for the rest of my life about my mom, and I STILL wouldn’t quite manage to cover how great she is, or how special, or how amazing. Really. Truly.

I think that’s why people might get the impression that my mom and I have a pretty perfect relationship as moms and daughters go… and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Well, mostly.

We have our flaws, too, and we argue and clash and set one another off and push buttons like a couple of pros at times. But not all the time or even much of the time, which is why I count myself more than blessed to have the mom I do.

I don’t think I realized what a good deal I had in The Judy until I was older, and started to hear more about the fractured relationships my friends experienced with their parents.

Their stories were full of loss, chasm, distance, pain, conflict… and there I was, thinking my mom was kind of annoying because she was hassling me about going to the doctor, or wondering why I wasn’t going to church, or suggesting that maybe the guy I thought the sun rose and set on was a bit of a doofus (oh, was he EVER.)

But it didn’t take me long to realize there are far, far worse things than having a mom who cares enough to get all up in your business.

And I may not always act like I know that, but I do.

I do.

So, to you, Mom, the happiest of happies today. I love you so much.

Only one more person on this planet (besides the three of us who already do) is ever going to get to call you Mom, and that will be the man I marry.

I’m pretty sure he’ll be thankful for you, too, since the woman he’ll be getting will be the product of your diligence and love (and one or two lectures along the way.) That, and you will love him like one of your own, since that’s how you roll.

Your heart always has more room.

Which explains the legions of people who WISH you were their mom… but we’re only sharing you four ways. So there!

Well, plus grandkids.

Actually, I’m pretty sure when the grandkids show up, you’ll be all, “Children? I have children?” while rolling around on the floor with the tiny people we manage to come up with.

And they will be blessed, too. Just like us.

Thanks for putting up with me, Mom.

Keep doing it, okay?

I hope you don’t mind… it’s just how I tend to figure things out.

I mean, I guess I didn’t always know what I was talking about (and I still don’t), so I likely scuffed up your reputation now and again.

But I meant well. And mean well.

Thing is, I think you’re amazing. At the same time as I think you are confusing and elusive and complicated and problematic and incomprehensible and irresistible and irreplaceable and insane, I find that there’s nothing in the world I want more.

That’s sappy. I know.

But the feeling of finding you, of keeping you… even of losing you… is so hardwired into the function of my heart that the coming and going is like breathing.

I have fallen in love with so many things.

So many people. So many plans. So many hopes. And there’s always something I can reach for, no matter how many times you have slipped from my grasp.

Am I too optimistic? I don’t know. You’ve broken me more than once, so to take you on lightly seems like flying a kite into a hurricane.

But even when you hurt me, I don’t want to stop trying. I mean, I do. But I can’t.

Even when I’ve forgotten how you feel, I know my sense memory will recognize you again in a second.

Even when I am lacking trust and lacking faith and lacking the confidence in myself to give and receive you, I know you will remain until I figure it all out. And then some.

Even when you go, I know you’ll come back another way. No matter how long it takes.

Thank you for being my constant, even when you weren’t.

Thank you for being my test, even when I failed.

Thank you for being my challenge, even when I could not meet you.

Thank you for being my comfort, even when it was you I needed comfort from.

Thank you for being my future, even when I could barely make you out in the distance.

I will mess you up again.

But I believe, no matter what, that you are the truest map of my dreams and my days.

Whether I have the will to see that or not in the moment.

May I always have the will.

I love you back,

Meg

I once made 200 children pretend to be popcorn in a roped off circle. It looked like someone had taken a punk concert and reduced it in a photocopier.

The smell of oranges makes me feel that something good is on the horizon. (Even if it’s just eating the orange. Which makes it sound like I have really low expectations. Or scurvy.)

When I was little, I used to swing on the swings as high as I could and sing the tagline to a 7-Up jingle just as I reached the airspace parallel to the top bar. I don’t remember the jingle at all. I just remember that it was 7-Up, and that I would close my eyes and pretend I was a bubble rising. No, I wasn’t left alone a lot, why do you ask?

You can tell that I’ve actually injured myself if I forget to swear. Or if I’m bleeding heavily, or if a part of my body is missing. But I digress.

Isn’t science fiction an oxymoron? I know, I know, it’s not really. But I love it when I say things like that and someone is like, “NO, IT’S FICTION BASED ON SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OR FANTASTICAL EXTENSIONS OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS” and then I’m all like, “Nerd.”

Hand cream always makes me feel vaguely unsettled, like an emergency is going to arise where I need to hang on to the skids of the helicopter but I’m too emollient and WHEEEE! off I go to my death.

I love fruit that doesn’t get your hands all messy, like mandarin oranges. Sticky hands could result in disaster. Though handy for hanging off of helicopters.

I think Slinkys (Slinkies? I hate “y” ending words that you can’t turn into “ies” words because they are trademarked or just stubborn) are the perfect toy for someone like me. Coiled too tight? Tumbles down stairs? Tangles upon stretching? Yes.

What goes around does come around, but sometimes it hits me in the face on the way by and bounces backwards and comes around AGAIN. That sucks.

Sun or shade?

Flip flop or Birkenstock?

Beach or lake?

California or Florida?

Lemonade or Iced tea?

Sunglasses or hat?

Grow your own garden, or head down to the farmer’s market on Saturdays?

Dinner on the patio, or brunch on the patio?

Reggae or Beach Boys?

Margarita or mojito?

Waterskis/wakeboard or mountain bike?

Take vacation or avoid tourists?

BBQ steaks or BBQ salmon?

Convertible or motorcycle?

Bike or skateboard?

Sailing or kayaking?

Take pictures of the fun, or take videos?

Coconut or mango?

Lie on the grass or lie on the sand?

Lounge chair or hammock?

Trampoline or… not?

Once there was a little fish named Meg.

She wasn’t actually that little. Actually, kind of round. But not too long, so still technically little.

What Meg wanted more than anything in the world was to have little fish fry. Not fried fish, mind you, because that would be weird, considering that she was a fish.

(In fact, just tonight Meg learned the name for baby fish, and it sounds about as suitable as calling baby pigs, “Bacon”.)

A couple years ago, Meg learned that she could not have fry of her own. This was tough, but she kept swimming and breathing as best she could through her gills and looking on the bright side. Which was up, since the sun reflects on the water.

And she knew she would be okay, eventually.

What she also knew is that she’d take someone else’s fry to be her fry.

Kind of like she used to at McDonald’s when she got the small size and wanted more and someone wasn’t looking.

But that isn’t really how adoption works.

That’s more kidnapping, and for that they put you in the Fish Gulag. Otherwise known as Petco.

Wait, where is this going?

Tonight, I watched Juno. Which everyone has been telling me to see, because a) apparently I am Juno-esque, save for my inability to bake buns in my home oven; and b) I would write a movie like this, left to my own devices. Apparently.

And it made me cry, of course, because it’s not just about Juno, but about Vanessa, who wanted to be a mom so badly… and then she was.

As I will be, one day.

Probably not by myself, because hello, I am too lazy for such things. Really. I’d get even less sleep and then walk fatally into a wall or something.

But I want it more than anything. And I believe I will be good at it. I don’t need to bake my own bun to love the warm bun-ness of it all.

Which is where the tears come from. Not out of sadness, but just knowing something good is coming and so why not blubber about it?

Because that’s what I do.

Or, you know… I can always just get some fries.

Sometimes that glance makes me cringe, because I notice some random, wiry gray hair sticking up from my head like a flag on the moon, or because my eyes look puffed out like Large Marge from the Pee Wee movie.

I always walk away, though, because what can you do? That’s how I look. Put on some music, and let’s go.

That cursory check is just about equal to the amount of time I’ve spent walking through my own head lately.

I pop in to make sure nothing has blown up or caught on fire, and then I head out again, secure in the knowledge things will hold for one more day, or one more week, or however long it takes me to notice blood running out one ear from the sheer pressure of thoughts piling up.

Now, you might laugh when I say that, given the reality that I am both a writer and a blogger. This must mean I have cornered the market on navel gazing and self-reflection and BLAH BLAH BLAH THE VOICE OF MY HEART. And you are welcome to. I know all this is madness on some level.

But I’m awfully good at wading around in my own head and splashing enough that you might think I’ve gone deeper.

“She’s soaked. She must have gone for a swim.”

Nope. Shallow end.

It’s easier that way.

Then again, completely not.

So I dove in just now and looked a little harder in the mirror (and any other metaphors I could possibly include to indicate I was paying attention to my insides for a sec.)

You know what?

It’s a bit rough in there.

I feel like I’ve been passive about a lot of things, selfish about a lot of things, ignorant about a lot of things, confused about a lot of things, wrong about a lot of things, and pessimistic about a lot of things.

Not the positive, jolly, Love Listing girl who comes back grinning like an inflatable clown punching bag, no sir.

Just weary. And a bit lame.

I could chalk it up to being sick, and the fact that I needed to stay on the surface to keep going. Because that lasted a hell of a long time, and isn’t over yet. But that’s no great excuse. All I had was pneumonia, not the Black Plague.

I could chalk it up to being busy, but eh. Busy is busy. I’m going to be busier someday, so I better learn to be a human being through it now.

But regardless of the why, I’ve been silent here, mostly.

Because this is a mirror.

And I was running by.

If I don’t like what I see, though, I need to DO something, not just walk away.

That doesn’t mean I want to stand there and stare into the core of my soul for hours. That’s not helpful to anyone. That doesn’t make life go forward. That doesn’t make me a better person.

It just makes me a lameass who is abundantly versed in my own lameassedness.

No, I’d rather be a lameass who looks long enough to see why, and then stops. And learns. And evolves. And gets on with it.

It’s a seconds-longer action, but it makes all the difference.

So I’ll try.