My Mom Got A Boyfriend

I live in New York and my mom lives in Louisville, Kentucky. I spent like 10 years living in Louisville but it hasn’t been home for a while because I went away for school to Chicago and now working in NYC. My parents were divorced when I was just a baby but then my mom was dating this guy for most of the time I lived in Kentucky with her. That’s really all I’ve ever known so I don’t really feel like having divorced parents affected me as much as I’ve seen it affect other people because seeing my parents and their families separately was just the normal. I think that’s why I never felt weird that my mom had a boyfriend.

Well, like most ex boyfriends, my mom’s ended up being a POS and he’s not the purpose of this post so I really don’t want to spend one more sentence on him. IYKYK. For what seems like a long time, my mom didn’t really even go on dates… or at least she never told me (!!!) so when Brian came along I was like wait what?

I remember the first time she ever told me about him. I had just spent the weekend in Louisville visiting her and it was one of those weekends where everything was perfect. The picture above is actually from that day. We went to all of my favorite restaurants and did all my favorite things — which should have been an indication that she wanted to tell me something. Anyway, we were pulling up to the airport drop off section and we get out of the car to get my suitcase and right when we’re about to get out of the car she told me she kissed someone. I was like I’m sorry, what?

Who? When? Where? What the actual fuck? I didn’t even know she had met someone. I was in total shock and all of a sudden I was on my way into the airport and she was waving goodbye from the car. So that’s the first time I heard about Brian. At the time I didn’t even know anything about him, not even his name.

It’s weird because I’ve never really known my mom when she was dating and I know my experiences with dating and it’s just strange to think of our parents in those scenarios. My dad remarried when I was pretty young so I didn’t have a ton of experience with either of my parents dating. The other tricky thing is that if you know me, you know my mom and I are insanely close. Like the line is often blurred because she’s my best friend and I forget that she’s my mom because we just always got along so well. Sure, we fought when I was an angsty teen but we never really had any really big fights. And that’s something I’ve always taken a lot of pride in. Sadly, not everyone has the best relationship with either or both of their parents so I’ve always felt really lucky to have been so close to my mom.

So I got on the plane and didn’t hear about Brian again for a while. Next thing you know, COVID hit and everything was crazy and unpredictable. COVID obviously hit NYC so hard and it was such a different experience for the rest of the country because most cities in the US aren’t nearly as densely populated as it is here. So naturally there was a bit of a different approach for my mom and I in terms of COVID. In Louisville, they have a bit more space per person so they felt more comfortable going out than someone like me in NYC. If you know me, you know I see everything in black and white so when I noticed she wasn’t “taking it as seriously as me” in terms of still going out and doing things I was so confused, upset even. I really thought that maybe it was because she was dating this new person that thought completely different than me — it was a weird time for me all around. It was a time for me to accept that people have different thoughts and opinions and that was all really new for me. Anyway, at the time I was not nearly as wise and mature as I am now, ha!

But really, I did grow a lot from this experience. So I hadn’t seen my mom in ages because I was very against traveling — shit, there was a time where I went 60 days without leaving my apartment, so traveling was definitely out the window. My friends and I were fucking sick of NY so we decided to escape to our friend’s family home in Park City, Utah. I have a team I work closely with out there so thought it would be a good opportunity to work with them and get the heck out of NY for a little bit. I couldn’t justify traveling to myself without stopping by to see my mom and I didn’t want to leave Lola in NY by herself. So Steph and I decided to take a road trip to Kentucky (I kind of just forced Steph into going with me) which ended up taking like 14 hours. We were exhausted by the time we arrived and we were staying one day and then flying to Utah the next day. I was going to drop Lola off with mom and come back after Utah to spend a week or two with her in Louisville. Perfect plan, what could go wrong?

Everything. We were exhausted when we got there and had planned to play tennis the next morning like 5 hours after we drove in… It ended up being my mom and her group of friends and then Brian and his friends, who were now my mom’s friends as well. Now, you all know I don’t do well with change, which is strange because it’s fine if I am in control of the changes but when it’s not in my control then I get really anxious. Like yeah, I’m a control freak but I have terrible anxiety so it’s not like im actively looking for things to get upset about.

So we show up and really the only thing I want to do is be with my mom but I’m grumpy and exhausted. We show up and someone made fun of me and Steph for wearing a mask while we were walking. So that set the tone for the rest of the day. I don’t even remember who said that to be honest. Well I’m such a bitch when meeting new people, in particular, and I was just not in the mood to be meeting Brian and all of his friends. All he wanted to do was play tennis and Steph and I were exhausted! There’s only one person I know that loves tennis more than Brian and that’s my mom. So they went off to play/watch more tennis after lunch and we just stayed and hung out with my mom’s best friend and her new boyfriend. In retrospect was probably annoying and insensitive on my part to make an effort with her new bf and not moms… like I said, I’m older and wiser now.

I was like how strange that my mom wants to go be with Brian and not with me when I’m literally never in town. (She thought we were going to nap bc we were exhausted but we just said that bc we didn’t want to go play/watch tennis. We stayed at the lunch place eating and drinking with her friends). So we didn’t have like an altercation but it was just like too much for me to meet Brian and his friends and see all of my old friends and be exhausted from driving in at once. My friends know that I’m super particular about getting me out of my comfort zone and that was not the day for it.

When I got back from Utah a few weeks later, I was planning on staying for two weeks to be with my mom. But Brian was literally always around. I was like does my mom not even want to hang out with me? I was thinking it was soooo weird because we were so close and we did everything together. To make matters worse, my head hurt like a bitch. In Utah, I hit my head on a bunk bed when I was going to work at 4am because of I was working Eastern hours in a Mountain Time zone. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but a week later the pain was just getting worse and I wasn’t sure if I had lost consciousness on impact or not but I was pretty certain that I had. If you follow the blog, you know that this is how I discovered my lovely brain tumor — I’ve since named her Jean.

I can honestly say I was so miserable. From going to the ER, being told I had a brain tumor, thinking I was literally dying, it was just a fucking whirlwind of emotions. After leaving the hospital, I spent most of my time in bed. I had no energy to do anything and I had a pretty bad head and earache that wouldn’t go away. It’s crazy how the brain works because it blocks out trauma from your memories sometimes. My mom and I had the biggest fight we’ve ever and probably will ever have. I felt like she was pushing me to hang out with her and Brian and play tennis and do all these things I didn’t want to or had the energy to do. She, on the other side, thought I was being a bitch to Brian, which I was to everyone, not just him. I felt her only priority was Brian and I was so annoyed that I even came because I thought she didn’t even want to hang out with me or like she wasn’t making the time to hang out with me alone. Clearly tons of miscommunication and sort of pointing the finger at each other. It was a shit show.

I won’t get into the fight because just horrible things were done and said on both sides but it was SO bad that I tried to leave Louisville that night. I remember crying and hyperventilating and looking for a way out. I am the biggest drama queen ever :). I was like fuck this guy, he has totally brainwashed my mom and now she feels like she has to do everything he wants and says. I thought I lost my best friend.

I really didn’t think we would make it back and I resented Brian for that. I thought it was all his fault and had no interest in getting to know him or honestly repairing things with my mom. It was a dark time for both my mom and I and definitely uncharted territory for both of us.

I was truly heartbroken. I cannot compare a single breakup to what I was feeling at that time and I can’t even imagine how she was feeling. Everything she had done, she had done with the best intentions. She wanted me to meet Brian and his friends and play tennis with them. She wanted me to love them just as much as she did but I think she forgot that she was the one that had spent all that time with them building relationships overtime and that I can’t recreate in one or two days. Particularly when I’m not willing to make an effort. She wanted me to love them so much that it was overwhelming and suffocating for me and the only thing I know how to do when something like that happens is to back away and distance myself. Which was the opposite of what she wanted. The harder she tried, the harder I pushed away, and the harder it became for her and for Brian, I assume.

God bless his heart, he was not giving up and neither was my mom. Things were very weird for a very long time and honestly I was not putting much effort into fixing things with my mom. I hold grudges a lot and I could not let that fight go. It took a long time for me to heal and let her back in but she was not taking no for an answer. She accepted that I needed time and space and I think that was the biggest thing that helped mend the fences.

In my mind I was like I don’t really care about Brian but she seems happy and if there’s anyone that deserves happiness, it’s my mom. She has truly been through so much and is one of the best people that I know. So why would I make it hard for her to be happy? At the end of the day, I don’t even live in Louisville, so I don’t even have to see the guy except on holidays. My friends all told me that I just had to rise above even if I didn’t like him.

Mom came to spend a weekend with just me & my grandparents in NYC and things were very much back to normal. She came back later that summer with Brian so we could go to the US Open and honestly things didn’t go well. We were all three trying to figure out a way to co-exist and it was kind of miserable. We all tried to do nice things for the others but it wasn’t working out. Look how fake my smile is in this next pic — I had just cried earlier and my eyes were still so puffy and red.

For Thanksgiving every year, we meet my grandparents in Texas and in 2020 I didn’t go bc COVID. I was planning on skipping 2021 as well but then you get into how precious time is and the reality of things so I decided to go because I didn’t want to waste a single opportunity to spend time with my grandparents. I wanted to see my mom, but to be 100% honest, I did not go for her. However, when I left, I was so glad I went and it was 100% because of her. I remember talking to Aaron and trying to decide if I should go or not. When I was there I remember telling him that I was so happy I went particularly because of my mom. I knew time with my grandparents would be great but I didn’t want to deal with this dude Brian, ha! It ended up being really nice and I got to see how in love with my mom he really is. It was so nice to see my mom so happy and when I left I was so happy that I got to see her that way and left feeling with a sense of comfort. In my mind I was thinking, ok this guy is not bad and most importantly, he makes my mom happy & he treats her like a fucking queen. We love that.

At this point, I was thinking that I could co-exist with him. He would text me here and there and I would respond but I wasn’t really trying to go too far out of my way for him. Fast forward to Christmas and he was coming to Mexico. I was like oh God, this will be interesting. He was literally on his best behavior the whole time and he was so thoughtful and caring, not only towards my mom but towards our whole family. We only overlapped for like 2 or three days and Steph and I were deathly hungover for one of them. It was the last day in Puebla that I finally felt like I fully came around.

For starters, we went to my favorite brunch place in the morning and that set the tone for a good day. We got to go sightseeing and we went shopping for touristy souvenirs. The weather was perfect and we got to experience the rich culture of our favorite city. The best way to get on my good side is with good food, drinks and by making me laugh — and that is just what he did.

We went to get churros at this popular churro shop, while we waited in line, Brian got us a table and got us some beers to enjoy our churros with. We sat down and I was still not fully onboard at that point but not actively against like before. The churros had chocolate and cajeta on them and there were a ton of bees just flying around being annoying. We all kept trying to shoo them away but they kept coming back. We’re sitting there and all of a sudden I see Brian lock in on one particular bee. Next thing you know, he squashes it with his beer bottle and my jaw dropped. I gasped and he looked up at me and he had the biggest smile. He was so proud of himself at this point and I was like in shock. If you’re like Brian, you may not know that bees are ENDANGERED species and they are critical for cross pollinating — I was so upset! When Brian realized I was not proud of him for squashing that bee, he had this look of shock and it was so funny. My mom, Steph, Brian and I were sitting there just looking at each other and we all just started laughing. He was like “Oh… I thought she was proud of me!” LMAO. it was really cute.

After that we went to Cholula to see the cathedral at the top of the pyramid, which I had never been to. Cholula is a popular party spot and that’s all I had ever been there for. I didn’t even know there was a cathedral there tbh. We get there and on the way to the cathedral, there were all of these people selling things on the street and there was one stand that had these typical Mexican sweaters. You really would never wear one if you’re from there but Brian loved it and bought himself and steph one. So touristy, but so cute. I think he even went back and got more the next day.

Brian and I share one very big thing in common and that is how much we both love my mom. I never really realized or cared about how important it was to my mom to find a partner and for me to like them. She has literally gone through so much in her life and I truly think that if there is someone that deserves to be happy, it’s definitely her. It was really when I started dating Aaron that I realized how important it was to me that my friends and family liked him and it hit me that that’s obviously the same for her. While I think we both made a lot of mistakes along the way, we had the best intentions and have now been able to work through the growing pains.

Dear Brian - thanks for making my mom so happy and taking care of her. Welcome to our family.

xx marn