Where's My Tail?

Here I go again. Instead of staying home to clean my own house and tend to my garden, I am going to mom's to wash her windows, clean out her garage, take photographs of unwanted items to put on craigslist, nail in quarter-rounds where the floor meets the baseboard, and do who knows what else she's got in mind.

All these are outstanding chores that apparently I said yes to, but keep putting off with reasons like, The Man will be home, The Boy needs help, It's too hot out, I've already got plans, I'm too busy. Mom accepts all these reasons except for I'm too busy. She doesn't understand this one. She keeps asking, "What are you busy with? Why aren't you home? You don't have a job." As if employment is the only justifiable reason for being out during the day or for being busy.

I've stopped telling her how I spend my time. I don't want to hear "Why would you want to do that? What are you bothering with that for?" any more from her. Too negative. I guess I've just taken my time to do what I wanted and let the chores pile up. Not that they are necessarily my chores. It's more that they become mine because I complain to mom about how unsightly her walls are, how dirty her windows are, how messy her garage is. Mom then says, Oh I hadn't noticed, or I don't know how to fix that, or I can't do that by myself. I give a big sigh and say, Look, I'll come one day and help you do it.

So naturally, that repair becomes my task and I can't really say I'm being forced to do it since I pointed out the problems, then volunteered to fix them. The real question is, why do I do that, then feel it's a great imposition on my time that I have to do the chores. I don't know. But it has a chasing my own tail feel to it.