Whine and Crackers

I debated whether I was even going to write about this -- I try not to air too much "dirty laundry" because even though I have an overactive imagination and I live in a fantasy world 95% of the time, the reality is that I live in a house with real people who have real feelings, and I don't want to deliberately hurt them.

But the fact remains: Mother's Day kind of sucked this year, and I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit to being sorely disappointed.

I know that Mother's Day isn't supposed to be about presents -- I know this. It's about recognizing and appreciating those women in our lives who have had the greatest impact on the people we are, who we will become, who we are still becoming. It's about thanking our mothers, grandmothers, wives, fiancées, girlfriends, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends. Acknowledging them for being there, supporting us, showing us the way and shouldering our burdens when we can't bear them alone.

We do it with cards, poems, brunches, bouquets, trifles and trinkets. We say, in whatever way we can: "You mean something to me, every day, every minute, and I want you to know this. You are important to me. You have made my life what it is."

And I know that there is more than one woman in my husband's life, and in my daughter's, just like there is more than one woman who matters to me. In the same way, but different. He has a mother too, and she has more than one grandmother, and of course I do not think that Mother's Day should have been all about me, all about what I want, all about what I think I deserve, all about what I think I am worth.

But I do kind of think it should have been like that, just a little bit, at least.