jace

So, my mom is moving out to Florida. I hardly ever see my mom, which is hard for me because she's pretty much the only family that I'm close to. I get along with my Dad's side of the family, except my Dad, but I'm not close to any of them. I have a sister, but she has a lot of issues and we didn't like each other growing up. We don't really like each other now. And now my mom's moving to Florida, and it's likely that I'll see her even less than I do now.

My mom's moving to Florida for no real reason at all. She doesn't like California, for no real reason at all, and she wants to go somewhere else. She has a quasi-daughter (a daughter of a friend of the family that we took in and lived with us off and on my whole childhood) who lives out there, who recently bought a big house with her brand new husband, who then sadly decided to get drunk and kill himself driving, leaving his brand new wife with a brand new house she can't pay for. That part is very sad. My mom is using this as an excuse to move to Florida. She's getting this person to help her move out there, and she's going to live with this person in that big house until she gets a job, etc.

Like I said, I hardly ever see my mom. This is because my mom is extremely stupid, poor, and flakey. I love her, but it's true. She's 50, never graduated college (though she's been at least 3 times, each time for a different, fanciful thing), never owned a home, and has never made any attempt at securing herself a career or a future. She had a dozen different jobs growing up, and half as many since I moved out. When I was in high school, I made $.25 less than my mom did per hour at my crappy part-time job at the mall. I don't even know where she's working right now, or where she's living. She changes phone numbers at least 2-3 times a year because her phone gets shut off, or she finds some new awesome phone service that I've never heard of. This is the kind of person that she is. You can imagine the kind of life she leads.

Since I moved out of the house, almost every time I've seen my mom I've driven down to California. She lives in Lodi, a tiny hick down, and my grandparents (who I usually stay with) live in Stockton. Very close to each other, ten minute drive. Usually when I go down there I have to drive out to some restaurant in Lodi to meet her for lunch, because she's afraid of driving her car into Stockton since it's never registered or insured. The rare times when she comes up to visit me she rents a car. This is both because of what I just mentioned, and because whatever car she happens to be driving at the time invariably won't make it over the mountains to Reno. We haven't spent almost any real, quality time together since I moved out, which was close to six years ago. We see each other maybe twice a year, for a few hours.

The last time I saw my mom, she drove up to my house in a rental car. It was her, my grandmother (who is in a wheel chair and blind), and my sister. They refused to come into the house because I wouldn't let them smoke, which they all do. So they sat for three hours on the tailgate of the SUV they rented, outside my house, and smoked. I stayed out there with them, because they were visiting. When that got intolerably awkward they went to the casino to gamble. Then we had dinner at IHOP. The next day we were going to spend the day together, but my mom couldn't afford a second night in the hotel like she thought she could, so they left early because they had to check out of the hotel on time. They called me from the road.

Earlier, before Christmas, she mentioned that she would be moving and said that she would go out of her way and come visit me in Reno when she left with the moving truck. She wanted to drop off some stuff of mine that she still had, and visit me before she moved to the other side of the country. She talked about getting a hotel here in Reno and staying for a few days with me before moving. She also offered to give me any of the big furniture I wanted, which was wonderful for me since there are pieces like my deceased grandfather's dresser and other stuff from my childhood that I would eagerly take.

So... I just got a phone call from my mom. She doesn't have the money to pay to come up and see me in Reno before she leaves. With the hotel, gas, mileage on the truck, etc. it's just too much. She was wondering if I could come down and pick up all my stuff and my furniture. I told her that I really wanted her to come up and spend some time with me, some serious time for the first time since I moved out, and that I was honestly kind of disappointed (and pissed, but I didn't say that) that she was canceling on me. She said that she just didn't have the money. I told her that it would be extremely difficult for me to get down to see her since I have class five days a week. She said we could just meet up for lunch on the weekend, I didn't have to stay overnight. At that point I kind of bailed on the phone call.

I love my mom. I really, really do. She was basically my only parent growing up, and despite everything negative I said about her, she's my mom and I love her more than anyone. So when she pulls stuff like this, especially right before moving all the way across the country, it really hurts. It hurts even though she does it all the time. I can't count the times my mom has canceled on me, but every time she does it, it sucks. It takes all the wind out of my sails. I hadn't even thought about her coming and visiting in March, but now that I know she's not coming, I want to cry. I think she could tell how disappointed I was, because she said something like "Hey, it's only like $300 to fly out to Florida, you'll see me soon." I felt like saying, "What makes you think that if you can't afford gas money to visit me in Reno, that you'll be able to afford to fly round trip across the country to see me, or that I'll be able to see you?"

Anyway. I'm pretty bummed now.