Hello and welcome, it’s a nice day, let’s go out to the backyard and have our drinks.

Please mind my plants. I put it on the bench so they can get their 6-8 hours of required sunlight and what can I say? My peppers love the heat from the bench despite being the sweet kind, not the hot kind.

If we were having drinks, I would imagine you asking me about the title of this week’s #WeekendCoffeeShare. I would tell you I had originally wanted to go with something shorter but couldn’t think of anything shorter than this. It’s the strangest thing that I came up with the title before writing a word. It’s usually the other way around.

Here’s the thing…

After coming home from my trip a few weeks back, something changed. I could swore I felt it the moment I walked in but I couldn’t pinpoint it until now, well, sorta.

Ever since I came home from my trip, my mom and I have said very little to each other, much less than before the trip, and each time I tried to communicate or tell her something, she would either listen half-heartedly, waves me off, argues, or simply tells me to shut it. She spends her hours either watching shows with annoying music or chitchatting with anyone but me.

On Thursday, as if my luck hadn’t been bad lately, I chipped my molar tooth on a peach pit. Of all the things.

“Oh crap,” I shrieked, gasping at the piece of tooth on my palm. “Not again.” It was the same tooth that got chipped two years ago by a cherry pit. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, there’s only maybe 40% of the tooth remaining. “Can the dentist put a cap on my tooth or something?” I asked.

“Don’t talk to me about that stuff. I don’t want to listen to you.” Mom replied. Feeling resigned, I returned to my room.

Last week, I told her my gardening class starts this week. She waved me off. Then on Thursday night, during my class, she shouted at me from downstairs telling me to do stuff. I muted myself and informed her I was in a class. Immediately, she gave me a dirty look and muttered loudly, “only learn the useless stuff.”

I swear I feel more lonely now when I’m at home than when I’m by myself in a mountain somewhere. At least, when I’m alone, there’s no one throwing criticism in my face and interrogate me about wasting money on things like a gardening class or a 5-tier vertical planter, which was delivered on Thursday and I had to cleverly instruct the delivery man to place it in the backyard before I could personally carried it into the garage when Mom’s out.

And I must say, it’s quite difficult for find a place to hide two 22 pounds packages in my garage but I found it.

If were were having drinks, I would tell you my boss treated my co-workers and I to lunch on Wednesday and during my conversation with my co-worker, the issue about my mom came up. “She wouldn’t let me leave the house unless it’s with a good reason.” I said.

“Maybe she’s trying to make up lost time.” My co-worker replied. Mentally, I did the math – she left me 3 years in China, 6 months in Texas, and 1 year in Utah. That’s 4.5 years max.

“But I’m an adult,” I said, “I should be able to leave my own house.” Somehow, I wish it was that simple.

If we were having coffee, I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.