I've collected all these thoughts and I'm dying just to lose them...

I find it interesting how people react to situations in such a variety of ways. Obviously this is expected since everyone is different, but sometimes reactions are unexpected and also unwarranted in certain situations.

For example, I got into a "tiff" with my mom the other day. This is unexpected on two accounts: 1) my mom and I hardly ever fight, it is an extremely rare occurrence (that may have been redundant, but I am trying to emphasize that point), 2) I'm leaving home in less than a week and you'd think that fighting would be the last thing that would happen. This is what went down: I was doing research on taking a bus to return to Indiana (my car is at my g-rents' house there) and realized through my research that I had to go to the actual station to get my ticket. Well, this would normally be fine for most people, but I live 85 miles away from the bus station, so it's really not that feasible. I explained to my mom that there was a bus scheduled for the day I want to leave and that I'll just have to buy my ticket that morning because I can't get it any other way. I had tried calling the actual bus ticket-line's phone number multiple times, but I never got to a person and I realized that it wouldn't do me any good because under the schedule listed on the website for my bus it said very specifically that I needed to buy the ticket at a station for this trip. So I gave up on that endeavor and resigned myself to waiting until I got to the station to purchase my ticket. Apparently my mom believed that I had not tried hard enough and was being her passive-aggressive self and silently sitting there in a "huff." I asked her what else did she expect me to do and she told me that I should call the station. I explained to her that this would do me no good as I could not buy a ticket from them and the website had made it very clear that even with a ticket, my spot on the bus is not guaranteed. So she proceeded to say, "fine, I guess you can just stay here then or we will find someone to bring your car here for you." I might add that this was said in a raised voice, so I sat and did not say anything while she tromped around the house and then called the station herself since I clearly was not going to give-in to what I knew would just be a fruitless enterprise (plus I'm stubborn). By the time she was done talking on the phone with the lady at the station she had calmed down and had learned all of the same information that I had already told her, but she was satisfied because she believed all of our options had been now exhausted. Thus, her reaction was unwarranted because I had told her the truth, and it had been proven through what she had learned by calling the station herself. I think I had a justifiable "I told you so" in this situation. I may add that I was going to call the station eventually, but I had been quite frustrated with my previous attempt at human contact with the bus line and wasn't ready to go through an automated voice system again at that current moment, even though, as it turns out, I would have talked to an actual person.

This all leads me to the discussion of, was my mom really upset at me for not exhausting my options or is she just not dealing with my leaving home very well? I would think that logic would choose the first one, but since my mom does not normally react in this kind of way I can't use that logic to justify her actions in this scenario. I believe that my mom is not comfortable with me taking a bus all by myself, sitting in a bus station in downtown Chicago for 5 hours during the night, and not having any knowledge of when I will be able to visit home again. Now I would think that most people in this situation would not react in anger or bitterness towards the person leaving. Although I suppose it is somewhat similar to how certain people react to death or terminal illness...that is definitely an extreme comparison though. The difference in this situation being: there are only a certain amount of days left and one would think that they would be spent having good quality time with said person. I know that if I was my mom I would be upset about my child leaving home, but I'm not sure that I would react in "shoving" that child away while he/she was still at home. It is never easy to say good-bye to someone you care about and not know when you will see the person again, as I have had to experience recently. But it is even harder when it is someone you love and have raised in your own home. Don't get me wrong, I am going to have a hard time leaving home, but I am definitely ready for my next chapter in life...to get out on my own and discover what the world has in store for me. It will be fun and exciting for me, so that makes my end of it a lot easier than it is for the people I'm leaving behind. I recognize this, and respect that my mom may not be having an easy time of it...regardless, I still find her reaction to the situation fascinating. Granted it makes my time left at home semi-stressful, but I don't think that will be how my few remaining days at home will end.

A real update about how my life has been this summer will come...I promise ;-)