Five years, tomorrow.

Five years since that Monday. "The surgery took longer than expected, she's just coming out now." Five years since I went to my supervisor and said, "I can't be here, I have to go." Five years since that very long week of living at the hospital, waiting. I was the only one waiting for her to die.

The end of the time. The end of it.

"You shouldn't drink so much," she said.

"Mom, please believe me, you're not going to make it."

"Don't be silly. Of course I'll be okay. I just say that stuff, you know."

"Mom, you know I have the gift. You will not survive. Please write it down for us, we won't remember. Please, just listen to me. I love you. I love you so much."

The hardest thing I ever had to say. I was mourning for her since the clock turned midnight on that New Year's Eve. Suddenly I knew, before anything ever went wrong, I knew. Maybe that's why it shut down for a while, because I couldn't handle it. I really couldn't. Before it was "sometime in the next 5 years" but two years after that fateful New Year's, I knew that that year would be it.

She did her own eulogy because of my warning. I still can't listen to it. I refuse to. And for the longest time, I couldn't remember anything except the hospital, and maybe some bits and pieces of my life.

Now I remember. And as I was reading through some of my earlier stuff, I realized that she weighed down on me, with impossible demands and leaps of logic that drove me insane. She was gone and I moved on. That while she still lived, she kept torturing my soul, tying it into impossible knots until I felt helpless. I fell on my own two feet, and after five years, I'm me again, outside of my prison. But I knew this too, that I couldn't be me again until she was gone. It's a horrible thing to say of your mother, and many people revered her for her kind spirit, which was nil when it sometimes came to me. Hence, I could never really tell her anything, something that I'm quite sure made her mad, jealous that everyone else's daughters could share things, but that I was unwilling to. I could feel it under the surface, that jealousy, wondering what happened to make me so distrustful of her, but I cared not to elaborate, though I could have. But I took it upon myself to know that it's not worth it to share these things with people, that my mind and soul are my own, of my own making, shaped by the world.

Surely asking for the Ipass to visit "a friend" would have involved more questioning than I ever wanted to bear, because "it's none of your business" never worked. She never understood that phrase, though she said of my tormentors, "they're just jealous of you". (If I hear people say that now, I want to punch them. Repeatedly.) Every single step of the way she teased me..."OOO, you're wearing nail polish! Are you going to meet boooooooys?"..."Are there going to be any boys at that party?"...and hundreds of others that pretty much ensured that I would never contemplate even expressing interest in guys in high school. Thank god I went to an all-girls school, which made keeping to myself and not dating that much easier. I'm sure everyone thought I was lesbian. There was an exception or two, but nothing ever came of it, which was more by design than anything else. I think ExFiancee took so long to get over because that was my very first relationship. I swear, she loved him more. It didn't go too badly, well, except for all that stuff. Which she never knew because I wasn't about to fucking tell her. Ms. Nosy can put that nose back into joint and stay out of my business. She lost that right the day I was crying and pleading for her to take me out of that school. What's the point in telling anyone anything if they don't listen to you?

My dad, on the other hand, is totally awesome. I want him to live forever. He was the one who would defend me against her angry screeds. Maybe if I had begged and pleaded to him, I would have been spared. But that's the sad thing about being a child...wisdom only comes in retrospect. And I'm sure that she never told him what I said about it. When he goes, it will be so very painful. And the Ipass. He had no clue why I asked for it...all he remembered was that I was going to visit my brother. Didn't even care about the friend part. But he, too, is a private person, and respects people's privacy. In the respect of personality, I am so much more like him...different, but similar. But I couldn't marry someone like my mom, which ExFiancee was very much like her.

Of course, my mother always thought I was like her. No amount of me trying to correct that perception ever worked...well, didn't work until the last few years of her life, when she finally realized that I'm more stubborn and tenacious, that I'm willing to hold out for what I want rather than settling. I wasn't going to entertain the thought of being married while she still lived. Now, I think about being married, as the thought is nice sometimes, but if I don't want to be married, I don't have that pressure on me now. Me again, free again, on my own finally.

Midnight. When the soul takes flight. Forevermore to destiny's moonlit wings, flying at night among the stars. When the winds of change sweep across the landscape to move shadowy trees, rustling around lost souls and demons.

No more Keep Right signs to plague me.

And I drink to the night.