Yo Momma

It's Mother's Day, in case you missed the E! Network's Tales of Hollywood Moms special this afternoon. The Remix and I spent the day with her mom, who graduated with her second Master's degree this morning.

My mom is in Las Vegas, spending a month or so with her mom, who is very sick. My mom is afraid to fly, so she decided to drive. In her Mini Cooper. With her DOG. (She tried to rope me into this, by the way, but 30 hours in a clown car with my mom and a flatulent dog did not sound like my idea of a vacation. That, and I'm a little light on cash this month, which would make going to Vegas pure unadulterated torture.)

Anyway, I thought since it was Mother's Day I ought to say something about my mom. She's been good to me, for the most part. Sure, she's overbearing, annoying, needy, and deaf; but she's also kind, generous, well-meaning, and forgiving. She's constantly trying to drag me to church, but I'll forgive her that, too.

I'm a little worried about ma, mostly because she's apparently lost her mind. This trip she's on to Vegas involved quitting her job, and didn't involve taking my dad. Personally, I think it's a religious problem. Like most religious automatons, my mom is constantly looking for guidance from a figment of the world's collective imagination. When things are going well, it's easy to pretend that "God" is guiding you...if, like my mom, you find yourself vaguely unhappy at some point, it becomes a little harder. Now she's looking for something to actually happen, looking for "God" to show her the way somehow. Of course, he won't, and so she's left feeling lost. My mom has committed too much of her life to her ridiculous beliefs to turn back now--turning her back on the whole thing isn't an option. Subconsciously, she probably knows what's missing, and eventually she'll figure it out. When she does, she'll be back to thanking her imaginary friend for the guiding hand, and she'll be right again. Until she's not, anyway.

This is aggravating for me. My mom is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I feel like she's been railroaded by well-meaning zealots into a lie she's too comfortable with to challenge. Religion is perfect for people like my mom--she doesn't want to think objectively about things like premarital sex, gay marriage, or abortion. There's too much to figure out, too many people who know more about it, too many fancy statistics, too many gray areas. No, she'd rather be told what to think, complete with a pat set of reasons that are easy to remember and inarguable by virtue of being totally illogical.

I'm not mad at my mom. I love my mom. I don't want some ludicrous and antiquated religious sham to ruin my parents' relationship or my mom's life, though. She is fortunate to have some time for "God" to help her figure out what she wants--but once she realizes he's not helping, she better get it together quickly, before she follows in all her siblings' footsteps and makes a total train wreck out of her life.