And in the end..

I don't believe it. I really don't. Along with all the other emails I have been fielding today, I got a forward or a reply of some sort to something my mom forwarded to one of her friends. It was an email conversation we'd been having over the past couple of days. My mom's friends' reply wasn't very nice. I forwarded the whole thing to my mom, asking what the heck was going on. She explained, and I responded with an apology for what I had said, begging tiredness and sickness and a general feeling of being on edge. And in return, I got something I never expected. I know I didn't grow up into quite the person my mom was hoping for, and we'd fought over it in the past. I'd pretty much accepted that she was generally disappointed in me, and managed to get on with my life. Today she apologized. I hope someday I can tell her how much that means to me.