one monkey short of a barrel.

It seems that whenever I am thinking about calling my mom, she calls me first. She called me today at 11 am, which she should know by now is only several hours after I’ve gone to bed and I won’t be up for quite a few more. I called her back at 5.

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

I told her I’d just gotten out of the shower.

“No, I mean in Kansas. Are you coming back?”

I explained to her again about laws and how the government here just won’t allow me to stay and work here without a visa, and she told me that what she meant was how much longer was I staying. Since I’d left with the intention of staying for another three-ish months and being home for Christmas, I thought I’d made that pretty clear. And then she asked if when I returned home, I’d be breaking up with my boyfriend.

Um, no. I don’t drop my entire life and come to Kansas for four months if I’m not planning on this being long-term. It’s Kansas.

So I told her that I’m happy here, and I love my boyfriend, and he’s happy, and he loves me, and I need to be with him. And then she told me that she didn’t want me to come home.

“At least not until you have a plan, and you know when you’re going back,” she said. I don’t know if she realizes that when you apply for a visa, they don’t give you an estimated date of citizenship. “Maybe you should stay there for a while longer, while you figure that out.”

I guess they’re not really missing me.

“I just don’t know if we should live together again,” she said. “It didn’t really work out the first time.”

The first time being the seventeen years after she gave birth to me.