My mother’s first significant boyfriend after my birth used to get antsy on the roads. One of his lines was “are you waiting till Christmas?”

This line still resonates with me 3 decades to the day, in the most literal way.

My mother is a chronic procrastinator, it has been hitting me on the nerves . Some instances there is reason, others there’s not. The urgency of some things are selective, while others are not. The ones that are important, are often projected to me, while the rules for thy not for me, attitude.

My mother has no sense of time. Time over 24 hours that just builds up. Time piles up to her, it gets messy, and she likes messy timing. Promises are often broken for “maybe tomorrow?” that leads to the following, then the following day, and maybe another following day. No accountability on that end for attempting to keep the schedule as committed to. What begins of the 1st of the month then becomes the 20th day into the month which before you know it it’s the end of the month.

She loves to talk, in some ways I think she gets confused of the thought of doing something, then the idealization of doing said tasks, then believe in the latter, not realizing the former hasn’t even been initiated. Ether get gets overwhelmed, or needs to concentrate, or just a control issue, of her wanting to control something. And be sure not to nag her, and of course if you bite your tongue because you are afraid to speak out in the fear of nagging, or something else, you’ll get the combative “why didn’t you say this to me?”, then you’re going to be looked down upon of “I can’t read your mind!”

Jimmy Crickets alive, the feeling is the same!

No matter how gentle I try to persuade my mother to fix the control panel on the dishwasher, or try to adjust the door of the fridge for the right hand light to trigger on and off (because it was installed crookedly 5 years ago; there’s always reason, a rationale to justify delay, prolong, kick the can down the road.

My mother talking at-nauseam about fixing the fence line; to fixing the garage or the electrical system, she’ll go onto the first grade conversations about everything that needs to be done, because my mother can only cut up words and use verbs as nouns, but can’t cut the shit of the underlying needs. By talking this way, this allows her to have an insurance plan that she believes she’s actually doing something, but in reality is dreaming of what should be happening.

In short, to make dreams happen, you must wake up!

Oh then you might be saying: “shouldn’t you let a girl dream?” My mother is a) a woman b) she’s highly immature and c) she spends money on shit that is not related to the underlying needs. She’ll get all CFO on you for line by line the expense of the house, but yet she’s spending money on MLM stuff, online shopping for whatever to get her dopamine kick (but I think she – like me – is really doped out, she has so much need to escape whatever is going on (for you and me I think it’s out of context, and she really can’t cope in the real-world much anymore.)

And one of the ways to run away from the problems is to procrastinate as long as possible and wait till Christmas, and even that she’ll wait till after the holiday to complete some gift she couldn’t find in the house because she hid it well, or some other convenient reason (aka an excuse.) There were times in recent years where a Christmas didn’t happen on Christmas, maybe the following day or New Years. As much as I was an asshole on some holiday years, that was a while back, and it’s ironic that my mother isn’t seen as such. There’s always a reason to justify procrastination. I had tolerated for so long, and when I started to not tolerate it it was deemed as if I was stubborn.

Part of me enabling chronic procrastination, was me just trying “:to go with the flow”. I’m leaving my mid 30s (jeezum) and I have been putting up with this crap for so long and all it is has eaten away of my soul, and this woman can’t seem to fucking get things done on or close, it’s like scene in Speechless where the family is running like it’s some chaotic situation.

I am tired of the excuses. Motivation, lack of it, or needing another person (which is most likely moi) to help motivate her, justify, justify, justify.

At least my mother didn’t prioritize partying over parenting and she didn’t kill me because I had a neurological disability. So many women had admired my mother for those two things she didn’t do.

I’d be pissed as fuck if that’s the base level of expectations for the equivalent of the Profiles of Encouragement Award if there is a parental equivalent to the Kennedy School of Government.