She Hacks: Random Musing of My Fave Bachelorette

photo courtesy of Eccentric Old Lady

My mother is now in her 60's and while she cleans up really nice, most days she has no interest in wearing anything else other than baggy pants and an over-sized v-neck. She usually slaps a cap on and uses a store shopping bag to carry her purse. From the outside looking in, I would say that my mother looks beyond eccentric.
Every other weekend, my mother comes to the house and "watches" the kids. Usually she is out the door by 10 am and walking to the Dollar Tree to go on a shopping spree. Her grandchildren are used to her walks. She will walk miles and miles and come back with all sorts of items for cashew milk to children's underwear for the kids.
I always know when my mother has used the bathroom because I can smell the overwhelming scent of bleach. My mother douses the toilet seat with it before and after she uses it. No toilet is ever clean enough for her. She scrubs my light switches and screws up her face in disgust. No, my home isn't filthy. My mom's OCD makes everything appear filthy.
The kids and I just overlook my mothers eccentricities although we try not to aggravate them.
She uses a striped sheet to place over her pillows in the house so she won't place her head and face on the pillowcases available. At night I fall asleep to a serenade of her hacking toothpaste, saliva, and possibly mucous into the bathroom sink. She carries a plastic green "tongue blade" with her wherever she goes so she can scrape her tongue clean during tooth brushing escapades. Mom does it all. to. the. extreme.
One day as I was being lulled into slumber by the sound of the incessant hacking of Saliva & Company, I thought of what it would be like if my mother were to meet someone. I wondered what it would be like if some man were to see her on one of the days she weren't in her baggy pants and over-sized v-neck. I wondered what his reaction would be if he were to see her store shopping bag with a purse in it, or heard her bedtime hacking.
I used to nag my mother at giving love another shot and she would adamantly reject the notion.
Now that I'm older and have my own odd behaviors (yeah, I said it), I can understand why my mother has rejected the thought of merging someone else's life with her own. She is stuck in her ways, she understands them and explaining years of quirks to someone within the first few months of knowing them has got to be taxing on your patience.
So while I tuck my cell phone in my bra, shovel sunflower seeds and spit the shells while driving, and slather Icy Hot all over my neck and shoulders at night smelling like a menthol dream, I realized that time runs out. The older you get, the more quirks you have and it will become inevitably harder for you find someone to take you for all you really are. At time goes on, we take on more and more.

Dedicated to my favorite bachelorette.

"To thine own self be true."- William Shakespeare