I got nervous when I looked down at my cell phone to see that it was my mother calling. It was Monday afternoon and she rarely ever calls me during the day. I thought for sure she must have seem my Facebook pictures from the weekend bachelorette party I’d planned for a girlfriend and that she was surely calling to scold me. I know I’m much too old for any kind of punishment, but I still quickly hit silent, grasping the phone tightly in my right hand. I waited what seemed like two minutes for my phone to vibrate alerting me to a new voicemail.
And when it did, I prepared myself for the worse. She was going to be so upset with me thinking her only daughter has turned into some kind of binge drinker though the photos on Facebook did not convey such. Yet I was sure she would read too much into each picture and say something like, “Dear, please tell me you don’t really behave like that?”
There was no way I could go about my day without immediately listening to her voicemail. I took a deep breath as a knot began to form in my stomach. I was certain the rest of my day would be spent forming an apology and trying to explain that the pictures weren’t really as bad as she thought they looked. Yet a small part of me thought, just don’t listen to the voicemail until later, but my curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it, I was listening to my mother’s voice.
It sounded sad, even a bit disappointed as she described how she had spent the day painting the kitchen a dark shade of rosewood, quite a contrast to the light-colored wallpaper that had adorned the walls over the past 14 years. I immediately felt a combination of guilt and relief. Guilt for having been so selfish to have not thought of anyone elses’ feeling, but my own and relieved that she wasn’t calling to discuss my evening on the town as depicted on Facebook.
In the end her voicemail message left me feeling flattered. She and I have grown so close that she was calling me in the middle of the day so I could reassure her that no matter what color the kitchen walls were that everything was going to be okay. And it was and still is. And I can’t help but smile when I think what close friends we’ve become.
