fig. I: now to lie in it

This morning I changed my sheets. I like to pull the flat sheet over the two pillows, and make sure the comforter isn't pulled too far up over those pillows.

Tonight, I got home, pulled back the comforter, and found that the flat sheet had been folded back to just below the pillows, and that the comforter had been pulled all the way up over the pillows.

My mother.

This tells me one of two things, with one very likely leading to the second:
First, that she'd thought that I hadn't changed my sheets today.
Second, that I hadn't done it the way she likes it done.

Granted, I am sleeping in her house, in a bed that she owns.

But it is the only personal space I have in this place.

Now, I know the reality of it probably was that she did it matter-of-factly.

But to make myself feel better/worse, I imagine that she did it because in the back of her mind, she knows I will soon be leaving. I can take care of myself. I know that she's been yearning for my independence almost as much as I have, but at the same time, she's been tightening the reins, so to speak—trying to organize my life according to the ways hers is lived. Some of her ways work, some I have adapted, and some I have rejected.

Like the way I make my bed.

I imagine she came into my room and, seeing my bed made, thought I'd forgotten it was my week to wash and change my sheets. She knew I was gone all day at work and would spend all evening at rehearsal, so like she has done, long-sufferingly, she walks in to do my chore for me. She pulls back the cover and sees I have already changed my sheets. I, slowest morning-mover that I am, have always been, took a shower, put nylons on, dried my hair, got dressed, and found time to change my sheets completely before eating some toast, and running down to the bus stop.

To make myself/herself feel better/worse, I imagine her holding back tears as she remakes my bed.