Vocabularily Adventurous

I never told my mom that I only spent $127 on textbooks this semester, even though on some level she would have been happy to hear it. My mom had brought me up to shop for bargains, choose the product with the highest quality at the lowest cost. If she had known how frugal I had been, her face would have had such a proud look--I'd have smiled, and she'd have congratulated me. Her smile, though, would have been a little stretched. Like her budget, I guess.

She started growing me up around Thanksgiving, when I came home for the fall break to tell lies to my family and gripe with my friends. At Thanksgiving dinner she poured all of us a glass of wine--Grandma, Grandpa, my two unmarried uncles, my drinking-age brother, and me. I seemed astonished and made it as obvious as possible that this was my first alcoholic beverage. Granted, it was light-years better than the "bargain" stuff we'd been indulging in at school. (I never told her about that, either, but my secrecy had less to do with me being fiscally irresponsible.) She said if I wanted her to pay for my school books like she had promised, I'd have to type up a report, like some business owner; in other words, she stopped checking my bank account. The glass of champagne at New Year's was another tip-off, as was her polite refusal to drive me back to school and her insistence that taking the train would be a great learning experience. When I needed more than ever to stay her little girl, when I was still settling into College-Me and couldn't yet let go of Home-Me, she was snipping strings. Unfastening chains, unbuttoning buttons, unzipping zippers, tearing the Velcro off my kiddy shoes in one fell krrritch. I figured she'd drop me outright by June. I started clipping rooms for rent out of the classifieds.

I never felt grown up, though, until I talked to her on the phone one Thursday night in January. I was talking about all the new-semester expenses I'd been incurring. I complained that my checking balance had fallen below $300. Below $300. It was unheard of. I had even asked my bank to send me notifications every time it happened, so I could be ready for action?so I could transfer wads of cash from my savings account. Below $300, I said. On the other end, she laughed shortly and told me she couldn't remember the last time she had had $300 in her bank account. She mentioned her business expenses and lack of revenue, my college tuition payments, my brother's rent, and she laughed again to keep some semblance of flippancy in her voice. I'm glad it was only a phone call--I couldn't have watched her eyes flicker nervously while she let slip that she was foundering.

That's the moment I felt grown up. Not because I felt included in her adult world, not because it was like she had spoken to me as a trusted friend, but because, for as long as I've been alive, I have never once heard her say how hard it is to raise two children and put them through college. Of course I hadn't thought it was easy--in truth, I had never thought about it at all. I childishly assumed everything was great, but now that I knew the truth, I couldn't be a child anymore. By default, I guess that made me a grown-up.

My logic was flawed. There must be some middle stage where you struggle to reconcile the two extremes. I handled being an adult poorly for quite a while. The first thing I did was tiptoe around money issues whenever we spoke. I decided it would be charitable to pay for dinner when she came to visit. I completely ignored her when she offered to put money into my account or pay for my new pair of shoes. I never told her about my textbooks--luckily, she never asked. And once it took root in my mind that my mom was poor and I was selfish, an ugly weed of misplaced heroism spread like kudzu through my brain, settling comfortably in those sectors reserved for creativity, ingenuity, and common sense. Around the same time, I dropped out of school.

My first job was at the Portillo's where we used to eat lunch with our Christian friends after church. I brought in a little extra cash at a music studio, accompanying out of tune instrumentalists and vocalists who sounded like Stevie Nicks or Celine Dion before they were good. I applied at a bunch of the places at which I had always thought I might one day intern: publishing houses, newspapers, photography studios, libraries and bookstores. After a while I picked out a common theme: "Go ahead and graduate college, dear, and maybe we'll call you."

I'm no accountant, but I think it's safe to say that my expenses exceeded my revenues. It took me a while to figure out that I couldn't keep buying groceries for my mom and stopping at Payless or Kohl's on the way home, and Starbuck's coffee is too expensive to buy every morning. My mom stayed pretty quiet about everything--that is, she had stopped talking to me. I had played the adult card too often, and I don't think she enjoyed being told that I didn't need her. And I'm fairly certain she resented the fact that I had decided she needed me. Every time I mentioned Dad I made her cry, and every time I cited the fact that her daughter was the only one who cared about her, she would yell and scream about how her daughter should be at school making something of herself. But I was an adult now. I made my own decisions.

I don't talk to classmates and friends much anymore. Whenever I say, "How are you?" they respond with long and amusing stories about college and dorm life and ten-page papers. I don't like hearing it, because I always get this strange feeling that I should have stories like that too. It's silly, isn't it? Because when you do something for love, there shouldn't be any regrets.