It’s been a bit of a tough week. Thoughts in my head. Words being spoken. Concerns being raised. Its all had me thinking a lot. Thinking about my relationship with Mom. She is still Mom and I don’t want to treat her any differently. I don’t want to give her a free pass when we argue because she has MS and I don’t want to just give in to things because she has MS. At the same time I don’t want to seem like a heartless daughter who doesnt empathize with what she is going through. That’s the part where it gets tough. At what point does the line get drawn. At what point does an argument go from a simple mother/daughter one to a more complicated mother/daughter argument. The kind where if I am not careful I could really hurt Mom’s feelings and become insensitive to the changes going on with her. Changes that I need to learn to accept instead of causing my frustration with them to add one more thing to her plate to be down about. The kind of argument where you forget what the issue is because you are both trying to make a point. I think I am in the midst of walking that line right now.

I am far from perfect. My family is far from perfect. And adding MS to our lives has complicated our family dynamic in ways I can’t even fully articulate. It has also complicated my relationship with Mom. Mom and I had an argument Tuesday. Tuesday was also the day my phone decided to die. I then didn’t talk to her Wednesday and Thursday. Part of that was caused by legitimately being busy but I also knew I could’ve made the time to call if I wanted. I didn’t feel the motivation. I felt I needed a little time to myself to figure out my thoughts. I needed to chill out from our argument. If I got on the phone there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to let it go.

Today I realized I needed to call Mom. I realized as I was walking to Starbucks today (for free Starbucks refreshers from 12-3) that calling Mom to say hi and catch up was a bigger deal than resolving our argument. I don’t really think our argument will be resolved for awhile. It involves lots of convoluted issues. She has some points, I have some points, some of it has to do with MS, some of it is just life but at the heart of it I don’t think there is going to be a big, grand resolution anytime soon. At the same time it is not such a big issue that it has earned the right to impact communicating with Mom. To impact a part of her life that she really depends on and if I had to admit to myself, I do too. In many ways communicating is one of the biggest things we have right now. I need to put aside my stubborn tendencies to make a point and just move forward.

So today I did. I called Mom. We both acted like nothing had happened. In reality she may not really realize I am still bothered by what happened. Or she could be using her own Mom intuition to realize she needs to not bring it up either. The point though is by not calling Mom today I believe I would’ve crossed the line. Crossed the line into hurting her with my lack of communication. I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be that daughter. So I took a deep breath and called Mom. Had a great conversation and felt better when I was done. Let the unresolved items stay unresolved. They may stay messy and unresolved. Focus on the moment. And in that moment today I was having a good conversation with Mom.

Do you ever realize sometimes you have to just leave issues unresolved and move forward? Do you believe there is a line in dealing with loved ones between a simple argument and crossing into something that hurts much more? Did anyone else participate in free Starbucks today? What flavor did you try? I got the lime refresher…it was good but a little too lime flavored for my taste. Kinda wish I tried the berry.