This is an essay I wrote a year ago. It amazes me the power of writing and feeling what I felt at the time how it all comes out. This was written in one setting and unedited. I like to say that my two passions are competing with each other and at times, well actually, most of the time complement both of them.

When it is time for a son to become a man, is the time the mother has to let go. I never realized this, because I have been in love with the love of my life for some time. We do everything together: laugh, play, are intimate, hold hands, intwined together, and try to spend almost all of our free time with one another. Mom questions the whole relationship. She looks at anything that may be something off beat, she looks at the age difference, she looks at the nationality, she counts mentally how many times she has seen this person her son loves, and the times she avoids her on the telephone. Everything is calculated and nothing is missed in the equation.

I start to notice this, but still don’t understand the situation from girlfriend’s point of view. I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk to my mother, the person who has no choice but to pass the touch over. Each one has their own style of loving for the man of the hour, each unique and different, but now, in this present time, the amount of time is completely lop-sided.

“You stole my son. You stole my son.” I joke when I hear this, I don’t think much of it. But those words are something that needs to be address. They are the words of a direct attack of the other person in this triangle tangle. Of course I feel stuck in the middle. I’m trying to find the best way to please both. One is easy, the other is not. There are no real ways to solve the problem. I don’t know if it would be wise for both to have time to each other, together. Will it be prudent for each to be left in a room? I don’t know, it is at least worth a try.

Probably my mom has a strong hold of me because I’m the son who looked like he would never get married while she was alive. Probably because I was the son who came over so many times to see how she was doing and to give her the undivided attention she so deserve. Probably I was the son who started to pull away from her intoxicating web of motherhood, in order to be with his girl-friend. Who knows, I do care, but I don’t know how to fix this.

I think the issue I am dealing with now is that she doesn’t have the love that she once had that I have now for Shannon. She doesn’t have the man who would stop what he is doing and care to her needs. She doesn’t have the man who will take her advice and improve on their life as a whole. She doesn’t have the man who would care for her and would rather cuddle and hold her, than to watch television while drinking a beer. It is probably something she hasn’t had for a long time she is seeing in her sons eyes and actions.

My mother has told me ever since I was a kid that I should always love my wife, do things together, and the man is the head of the house hold. I can see it fully in my way of living and through her exhaustive nature of taking care of the whole family: financially, emotionally, and for a good bit playing the man’s role.

I think whenever she looks at my dad and sees me in the same presence as him, she gets this feeling that I wish he was more of a man. I wish he showed his son how to be more of a man. Why the fuck is he starting to own up to his responsibilities now, and not before? I love my son so much, she says, why is he growing up to be a man by what I say a real man is and what not to do by watching his father?

She goes to work everyday and doesn’t know what else she wants out of life. Yes, she wants her boys to be happy in whatever they do. But, I know for sure there is something she wants. Something she so badly wants in her life. I believe it is that attention she used to have when she was younger from my father. The passionate, lustful, wanting sex she once had, but hasn’t had in probably half a decade now. I know for sure, what she doesn’t want, is for her sons to go through what she has gone through. That is why she so wants to see who his son’s Love is all about. She wants to have a relationship of her own with this person that makes her soon feel so so special. I think that is what she wants and has the trouble being able to show that to her son and to his wife-to-be.