My mother is and has always been a wonderful person.  She was the most patient, loving mother an extremely  shy kid that was afraid of everything could ever have.  Some parents want their kids out by the time they’re 18 but my mother convinced her little “Bubbles” that I should never feel there was a certain age I needed to be gone so I stuck around until I was in my mid twenties. My decision to marry meant I had plans to move out of my parent’s home.  I did think about eloping and telling my mom I was at a slumber party but I think she would have eventually figured out I wasn’t telling her the truth.   She didn’t handle the “empty nest” syndrome very well and became very depressed when I flew the coop.  Twenty years passed and I went through a divorce and found myself asking her if I could rent my old bedroom for a few months.  She was more than happy to welcome me with open arms which was very nice.  There was only one small problem.  She shaved 30 years off my age and in her mind, I was now 17.  When I was actually 17 the old saying “You can never go home.” always bugged me.  How sad.  Why would anyone tell you that you can never go home?  Who would ever leave if they believed this?   When I was 47 I knew they meant “You will never want to go home because you’re mother will treat you like you’re 17.” or “You won’t be able to go home and like it like you did before you left.”  She checked up on me.  If I wasn’t home from work by 6 pm she would drive by my workplace really slow checking to make sure I wasn’t laying dead on the pavement out front.  She would call me to see if I wanted my mail brought to the store and if she should keep supper warm  and she washed my clothes.  To some this might sound wonderful and for the most part, it was and I did appreciate a lot of the sweet things she did but our relationship wasn’t the same as it was when I was her little girl.  We had both changed.  She liked the house 90 in the winter and 60 in the summer.  I was closer to 68-72 year round.  I liked to unwind after work in the silence of my room because I talked to people all day long and she liked to visit.  I wasn’t a fan of having both the radio and television on at the same time but she was.  I knew this situation was temporary so I did my best to cope with the everyday stress of living with my mother.  One night I got up to use the bathroom and I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water before returning to bed.  I saw a dark colored ball sitting near the sink.  It looked like one of those stress balls I used to make by putting flour in a balloon.  You could buy them too and I’m not so sure I didn’t have a factory made one as well but I have no idea where they ended up.  They were so fun to squeeze and I think they did actually relieve stress.  Well, the dark colored ball near the sink sure looked like a stress ball to me and in my half awake stupor I decided to give it a squeeze.  I sort of wondered where mom would have gotten a stress ball but I reached over and gave it a nice tight squeeze and found out, it wasn’t a stress ball.  It was a purple plum.  It sustained injuries.  It did not recover.  I went back to bed.

I moved out last May.  Finally I was back in my forties and starting a new life as  a writer.  You’re reading what has happened and if you keep coming back you’re going to find out what happens next and you too, will be “Bevitized” by my mom’s little “bubbles!”