I don't even know why I'm writing this down. Sort of feels dumb. My mom, she's older now, I guess. I go see her every weekend. Saturday mornings, always. It's what you do, right? For family. Back home, you don't really question it. But man, every single time, it's the same thing. She looks at me, like really *looks* at me, and it's always something about my weight, or my hair getting thin, or why am I still working that same job? Not good enough, I guess. It’s never good enough, really. I bring her groceries, fix stuff around the house, spend hours listening to her talk about the neighbors or whatever, and then she’ll say, "You look tired. Maybe you should try harder." Like I'm not trying. Like I'm lazy or something. I leave her place feeling… I don't know, kinda hollowed out. Drained. Like someone just sucked all the air out of me. It lasts for days, too. The whole next week I'm just waiting for the next Saturday, already feeling that knot in my stomach. My kids are grown, they got their own lives, my wife works Saturdays sometimes. It’s just me and mom. And her… expectations, I guess. The things she wanted for me, that I never quite hit. Always comparing me to her brother's kids, or someone back in the old country who "made something of themselves." Am I the only one who feels this way? Like you gotta do it, you have to keep showing up, but it just takes a piece of you every time? Is it me? Is there something wrong with *me* that I let it bother me so much? Sometimes I think maybe I should just… not go. But then the guilt would be even worse, I think. She'd call, she'd get upset. And that would be a whole different kind of stress. So I just keep going. Every weekend. Like a stupid broken clock, just ticking along.