The thing I have most feared since early adolescence was turning into my mother. The neat-as-a-pin authority I never hesitated to question. Leaving my mother's nest for the great big yonder of university, I thought, here's my chance. She won't even recognize me come Thanksgiving Vacation. Funnily enough, this did not happen. In fact, over the next several years, I found myself slowly becoming more and more like my parents, with traits of theirs slowly creeping up on me. I discovered a fondness of strong vodka that I must have inheritted from my Polish forebearers. My handwriting is now the lovechild of my father's "doctor's scrawl" and my mother's spherical cursive. In the middle of a laugh attack, I often emit high pitched squeals deafening even to five year old schoolchildren, a feat I previously thought only my mother capable of.
But my most important stage of metamorphosis was a sudden habit of drinking an inexcusable amount of tea. My sister and I have often in the past spied our mother, sitting by the living room window, and sipping tea. Occasionally, she would give a wistful sigh, and we would ask her what she was thinking about. "Poland," she would say. That's when we would crack up hysterically at Mama's romanticism. And we'd follow that with, "geez, how much tea can you DRINK?"
Apparently, alot. My mother has the skill of drinking more glasses of tea per day than a college student cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Apparently, I have inheritted this gift. My heart-stamped mug is surgically attached to my hand, and frankly, there could be far worse ways of becoming my mother.
