Mother's Day Conversations

This is kind of a personal post, but oh well. Yesterday was Mother's Day, as I am sure most people are aware. My mom lives in Alabama, which is too far for me to be there to celebrate Mother's Day. So I sent her a card and spoke to her on the phone, which is how we have handled it for the past few years. It was an exciting weekend for my family. My youngest brother is a senior in high school and the soccer team he plays on won the state championship! My parents had both traveled the two hours to watch the games and were very excited to see the outcome. But it means the end of an era for my parents. My youngest brother will be graduating high school and moving out to attend college. So, my mom is feeling a bit of "empty nest" syndrome. I thought my mom would be excited to have all her kids out of the house, she had said so in the past. Since my parent's divorce, my mom has always put great importance on her friends and her social life, sometimes to the exclusion of her children. It was often a source of contention between my mom and myself, that even when I was home visiting, she wasn't able to miss any of her social engagements to spend time with me. So I had always gotten the impression that she would be happy to have her life free to do whatever she wanted with it. But apparently, she's now changing her mind. When I said something to that effect to her, she told me her friends were just dinner here and there, it wasn't really life. It made me sad, and also scared me a bit. Because my friends are so much a part of my life. I know I don't have my own family yet, but I do rely so much on my friends to fill my life, that it is scary thinking that my mom, who seemed to place so much importance on her friends, all of a sudden doesn't think it's such a big thing. Is this going to be me in a few years? I hope not. But I guess what struck me the most was just that I wish I had known, or that my mom had expressed more, how important we were to her, that she wanted to fill her life with her children rather than her friends. Because I really didn't know until yesterday. I guess we misperceive things all the time. It's really hard to know what's going on in someone else's head. But I really wish I knew better sometimes.