Melissa was in no mood to collect her mother from the station and she was in no mood to listen to her giving out to her either. She knew that they would spend the weekend having the same argument about the same things. When was she going to give up writing the column, when was she going to get married and when was she going to have children?
Standing on the platform she realized that no matter what she did or no matter how she lived her life her mother would find something to complain about. At least she only had to put up with it for the weekend. She mightn’t be looking forward to her mother’s visit but she knew it was only for two days. By Monday she would have her life back and she could live again as she wanted.
Her mother would start off with the writing first. The fact Melissa’s weekly column paid her rent and bills, her mother still didn’t see it as a real job. A real job to her mother was working as a secretary or as a clerk in an office. She couldn’t understand how a girl of twenty five could be an agony aunt for a newspaper.
The next thing they would argue about was the fact that Melissa wasn’t married or didn’t have children. It seemed to upset her mother more than it did Melissa. The last time her mother had visited she had asked Melissa was she a lesbian. She thought she must be because it was so long since she seen Melissa with a man. Melissa had tried to explain to her mother that she was happy being single and that she hadn’t found the right man yet. As for children, she told her mother that she was only twenty five and that she had plenty of time to think about having children.
The most important thing to Melissa was to enjoy her life and she was enjoying it. She loved writing the column every week. It only took two days to write and the rest of the week was left to answering reader’s emails and letters. That was the part she liked the most, reading the letters and helping other people.
Melissa wished that her mother could understand that writing the column was a real job and that it was important to her. All she wanted was for her mother to tell her that she was proud of her. She didn’t like arguing with her all the time. She knew life was too short to be spent arguing with people but at times she found it difficult not to rise to her mother’s criticism of how she lived her life.
Looking at her mother get off the train Melissa hoped that maybe this weekend they wouldn’t argue as much and that her mother would finally tell her that she was proud of her. She didn’t think it would happen but that didn’t stop her from hoping.
