I Am My Mother

Mum, Alicia, Me, Danielle - Christmas Day 2007

My mum will be 75 in January, I will be 49 aahhh!! oh well nothing I can do about that is there?! As I have mentioned before in an earlier post mum came to Australia about 60 years ago and she loves Australia, "best country in the world Kim", she keeps telling me. And I am sure she's right.  Mum is kind, generous, nosy, a bit of a sticky beak really, she loves life, her friends, food, a little drop of wine, a few cocktails, cheese, her kids and her grandchildren.  She line danced until fairly recently, she had a champion marching girl team when I was a toddler, she loves fishing, theatre, a good laugh, she likes to walk and keep fit, even though she keeps telling me her body is resisting much exercise these days, all in all she is terrific.  So why am I seriously freaked out?  Because I honestly am becoming my mother? 

Well aside from all the wonderful, fantastic, exciting, inspiring things mum does, she is a total control freak.  I am not talking about just telling me what to do when I was a kid, I am saying she is still telling me what to do.  And she will ring and check to see if I have done it.  She is hysterical on the answering machine.  I think our machine has about a minute and a half of message time and I am not exaggerating here when I say that is not enough for mum.  She has been cut off so many times I can't count them and she will call back and just continue where she left off.  That isn't leaving a message that is talking to yourself!!  And the messages aren't "hey darling sorry I missed you have a nice day, catch up later" nuh they are full on telling me what I should do about this or that, and little off sides in between.  Now I know as we get older, little things seem to be more important than they probably are, but my fear is that I'm not that old, hey stop it I'm not!! and I am doing the same things mum does.  I called Alicia (eldest daughter) the one in the star tshirt above and left a message about getting together one day this week, last night and this morning around 5ish as I lay in bed contemplating what I will do today, I shuddered.  I recalled the message I left last night, it went something like this....

"Hi darl,  How are you? Just wanted to know if you want to get together one day this week, you know before you go back to work next week.  Yeah Thursday or Friday would be good, but we can go tomorrow if you want to.  I was going to iron tomorrow but if it suits you better to go tomorrow then that's fine ok.  Otherwise like I said Thursday or Friday would be good, either one ok.  We could go for coffee, lunch or maybe a movie, hey did you here Julie & Julia is coming oh wait a minute that's next week before we go to Brisbane for the weekend.  So ok thats out but there might be something else we can see or like I said coffee or lunch.  Whatever I'm easy ok well you let me know ok and how's Paul?  Ok well I guess I'll go now and you ring me if you want to do something ok, if you don't that's alright its up to you. Ok see you love you bye darling."

Now come on that is not a phone message that is a novel.  It's like go get a coffee, sit down, take a load off, mum's left a message oh my goodess, I am my mother.  And as if that's not enough I rang again today because I hadn't heard from her and I started again.  I was going to say something short and sweet like "Hi again hope you got the message let me know what you want to do love you "  Hang up.  But no I start with that and then get off the track and begin to leave part two of the novel and realise what I am doing, crack up laughing and try and hang up quickly, not really leaving a message at all.  What am I going to do???  Is it really possible for me to change my wicked ways and seriously commit to 15 second messages or am I doomed to follow in my mothers footsteps? 

Not only do I do the whol answering machine message thing, I do the exact same thing in real life.  Yep the girls will be telling us at the dinner table that they might go to Perth at Christmas time.  I should say "wow that's great have a blast ok".  But do I?  No way I go "Wow that's great, so have you booked tickets yet, you know the airfares are really cheap at the moment.  You should probably get it organised fairly soon, in case they go up.  And have you checked with your friends in Perth that they will be available to spend time with you then.  It's kind of close to Christmas and maybe they will have plans.  Yeah so maybe you should go in now and give them a call, you know just to check if it's ok.  You don't want to go and get those tickets and then find out they are busy.  Umm maybe we should look into this."  Um when did this become we, the daughters in question here are totally capable of organising things, for heavens sakes they just spent 12 months travelling to the US, the UK and touring through Europe.  Hey they did it without me, how did that happen??!! Amazing isn't it?!  So help me see what I mean, I am my mother and its scary.  She does the same thing to me still.  "Now Kim maybe you should contact the post office that letter I sent to Paul never arrived and it had money in it for his birthday.  You know someone has probably stolen it.  You could call the post office and tell them so they know it happened."  Well yes Mum I could except I didn't send it, I don't know when you sent it, or where from and they will want to know all this so it would probably be better if you contact them.  She is mildly shocked and goes quiet.  I feel really bad and then get annoyed because for crying out loud I am 48 and when will I be old enough for my mum to stop telling me what to do?  Maybe never, maybe I will never be old enough oh goodness what a pain.  But I laugh now because, she has a good sense of humour and a bad memory and the next call is just like the last one.  Umm I think some memory enhancing vitamins and some chill pills might be in order here, for me I mean.  While in so many ways I am happy to be like my mother, there are a few things I might need to change.  Love you mum xxx