“Clean your house,” she said, “It will make you feel better.”

Despite many arguments, mostly in my head, against this hypothesis, I did what she said. And, amazingly, it DID make me feel better. Yet more proof that my Mom is a genius.

Through the years, she – as a Mom, I believe it’s her duty – has offered me many pieces of advice. “Don’t pursue them,” she said, when I liked yet another boy in my youth. “Let them come to you.” Many times scorned, many times embarrassed, I’ve now learned that more often than not, she was right. “Be the bigger person,” she advised, when the last thing I wanted to do was to be the bigger person. After all, the “bigger person” doesn’t have any fun. Yet an Ohio upbringing and an adoration for my Mom led me to take her advice, and while not always fun, looking back, I know that I did the right thing.

This past weekend, I felt like her. I cleaned my house to the bare bones, scrubbing the floors and windexing and rearranging closets with a gusto I usually withhold for a Lawrence’s falafel sandwich special. I washed the car, raked the yard, bought – and planted – flowers, and cooked a quasi-gourmet (or at least sufficiently tasty) dinner for myself and My Darling Roommate. I did some laundry, went to the gym, and still got my requisite 8 hours of sleep. MDR said I was playing “Happy Homemaker”; I felt like I was finally filling my Mom’s shoes.

She’s so hard on herself – doesn’t realize that she is strikingly beautiful, even at 50+ years. Her ebullience lights up the room, and people can’t help but fall in love with her. She’s never once put herself first, always giving, always stretching every last inch of herself to ensure that others around her have what they want. She’ll eat yogurt as her main sustenence for a week if that means she can buy an extra Christmas present for me or one of her various friends-cum-family that she incessently spoils. She’s all that I want to be and more.

And yet, in the midst of folding laundry and trying – to no avail – to get my fitted sheets to fold up in anything other than a ball of cotton, I wonder when I will really make that transition. When I will make the buckeyes every Christmas, when I will sit in my child’s house and scrub the bannisters, when I will do the laundry and get the gas and stock the fridge and do all of those things that my Mom does for me when she visits. Because, as much as I feign maturity and adulthood, my produce goes bad, my stairs are always in need of a good scrubbing, and I assure you, her flowers bloom longer than mine.

They say one day you wake up and realize you’ve become your Mom. In my case, I can’t wait.