Adults and Adults...can they coexist?

I'm 23 years old...an adult, right?

When my mother was my age, she had been married for 2 years.

When my grandmother was my age, she was married and had 3 children.

Why is it that neither one of them thinks I'm capable of remembering to brush my own teeth?

Seriously, I kid you not, my mom actually asks me almost everyday if I have brushed my teeth and taken my medicine. I'M NOT 7!!!! FOR GOODNESS SAKE, PLEASE TREAT ME LIKE AN ADULT!!!!

Whew...that felt great :).

Granted, when I was a kid, I didn't brush my teeth a lot and always forgot to take my medicine. My biggest problem was that I would remember in the car or during school, always I place I couldn't do anything about it. I've gotten much better as I've gotten older (one would hope). But I will admit that I have trouble remembering to do some of that stuff, especially during the summer when I don't have a daily schedule. During the school year, I am extremely organized and get everything done on time, if not early, including all the items in my toilette.

It doesn't help that I tend to be very passive aggressive around my mother. Anything she would ask me to do as a kid, I would, of course, deliberately not do. Not healthy, I know, but I was about 6, so can you blame me? A really great example of that involved vitamins. She would buy these awful chewable vitamin Cs that I hated. I told her they were gross and she bought them anyway, just telling me to drink juice after them. But instead of continuing to talk to her about it, I hid some, flushed some of them down the toilet, and wrapped the rest in tissues and threw them in the garbage. So, unfortunately I've been passive aggressive since I was about 6. It's a habit. A bad habit, but a habit.

Luckily, Brett calls me on it and I can't get away with it with him (thank goodness!). No one is there with my mom to call me on it but me. I have to stop it. No one else. Except God.

I've been working really hard this summer on losing weight and eating healthy. My final weigh in is tomorrow and so far I've lost 21 1/2 lbs., around 25 in., 1 pant size and 1 bra size! I'm so excited and mom told me today how proud she was of me, which feels great :). Then later, I was looking at recipes telling my mom about some of the ones that I found and she did nothing but criticize them and lecture me about what I should and should not be eating. None of the recipes were bad (all under 500 calories) and I would be using low-fat cheese and fat-free soups and such. So far, I've managed a whole summer without her telling me what to eat so I think I can still do it for myself this year at school. I understand that she doesn't want me to undo everything I've done, but I don't want that either! It's not like I'm going to eat crap food once I get there. I've done that in the past, but I'm paying for food out of a budget this year, so I can't just go out to eat whenever I want. I'm going to have to really careful what I spend and what I eat.

This is the point when I struggle with my passive aggressiveness toward her. Part of me wants to say, "Screw you!" and do whatever I want and prove them all wrong, but I know it would just prove them right. I would end up gaining back all the weight and regretting it all over again. I'm going to do this for myself and no one else. And no matter what my mom says, I'm going to make this work. I'm not going to deliberately sabotage what I've been doing and eat really crappy food, but neither am I going to sacrifice the foods I love, I'm just going to find healthy ways to eat them. I'm going to respect my mom, but be my own person, grow up and take responsibility for my own actions. And I really don't need her help to do it :).

It's time to start cutting those apron strings...