The emotionally draining part of today was that both Raccoon's mom, and my mom had very similar ways of "helping" and "critiqving" how we have grown up.

Neither of us is very adeptly skilled at this whole "being an adult" thing, and never have been. We manage. We manage fairly well, when together... but it's a struggle to start and push further than the spoons we've got, between us. Always has been... just, together, we have more spoons.

But we have both always fallen FAR short of our respective mom's expectations, and they have both regularly talked at us and not listened to us, or took over every chance they got, and made us both feel very inadeqvate and even more broken than we already both knew we were... both of our respective younger siblings are far more grown-up and successful than we ever will be.

My mom passed a few years ago.

Raccoon has been trapped taking care of her mom for the past few days at her house.

So... it was a very long drive home, and it churned up a lot of emotions for both of us... we're both ok and safe at home, and in our safe place... but still...

It always hurts.