I was sitting on my front porch when the mail woman pulled up. We exchanged pleasantries and she left the package she carried  on the front steps. When I opened it, it was full of clothes. I pulled one individually packaged item out after another. Pants, shirts, overalls. Items I did not recall ordering. I opened all the packaging, certain I’d never perused the items before. These were not items I’d placed in a shopping cart and mistakenly ordered. I knew this, because these items weren’t work appropriate. Being practical, for years, I’ve only bought myself things that could do double duty. Yoga gear that could be street wear, cookout clothes that could go to work by adding a blazer and changing the shoes. One shirt said “Being A Mom Makes My Life Complete”. Nope, I didn’t order this stuff.

I doubled checked the address. It was correct. Then I checked the sizes. They were all large. My mother is bodycon averse. But she wouldn’t, would she? I looked at every item carefully. They were all modest, and all easy loungewear, just a little big for me. I really didn’t think it was her.

I called my mom. “Mom, did you send me clothes?” “Oh they just got there? I ordered them  a few weeks ago when I was sitting in my infusion and you sounded like you were having a rough day so I thought they would make you feel better and help you relax.” What?

My surprise can only make sense if you know that my mother has never, and I mean never bought me an item of clothing that I couldn’t wear to work. Ever. Our biggest fight in life was over some dresses she bought me that were better suited for a boardroom or office than high school, and she didn’t appreciate me saying so. This moment was so pivotal in my life that my bff and I still refer to it as “them dresses” 30 years later. My mom whose hustle singled handedly fueled the upward class mobility of our family in one generation. The one who I have never known to fully rest. The one who even at 71 has so much shit on her plate that I watch with both awe and pity. The one who told me to sleep when I’m dead. The one who probably gave multitasking its name. The one who LITERALLY brought home the bacon and fried that shit in a pan, then ran back out to show a house. That one. BOUGHT ME LOUNGEWEAR.

I picked up similar habits, and quickly saw that I couldn’t live that way, and felt inferior and unworthy because of it, FOR YEARS! I judged myself so harshly against her constant movement and energy. I think she used to judge me too. I was sleepy and lazy to her booked and busy. Only once I had kids, did she see how my commitment to presence and my focus on my boys took just as much energy. Now she celebrates that part of me. Only once I had kids did I see how hard her choices were and how much more strong and amazing she was to have been doing all of that with a husband and three of her own kids and her extended family in her back.

And with one purchase, unbeknownst to her, she healed a piece of my soul. The part of me that could never make sense of the world she inhabited that celebrated the constant going and doing. The part of me that has been fighting to just BE. I didn’t need my mommy to tell me it was ok, but damn it feels good that she did.