I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me to see me worrying about you

My parents are coming to visit this afternoon and staying until Monday. Now that we've cleaned the apartment I'm happy about that. It's not as though I think they'll be particularly uncomfortable or condemnatory if it's at its normal level of filth when they get here, but if it was they would clean it, and then I would feel so bad.

Generally speaking, guilt is starting to play a strong role in our relationship. I feel guilty for being so far away from them, more and more as they get older, though they're in blooming good health so I don't know why I've started pre-mourning and pre-worrying. My brothers are also the world's best, really good people, and most of them are in shouting distance of my parents, and then there's the great big spread of my Italian clan all over Ontario. And my parents have a great social and civic life, better than almost anyone I know - good exercise regimen, nice diet. So maybe all that guilt and worry is my way of missing them.

Maybe it's also knowing that as much as I am enjoying my job now - and yes, pound for pound I enjoy it - I know someday I'm going to disappoint them by leaving the world of executive perks and 'stability' (writes she two months before her six month probationary period runs out) and do something they'll be much less proud of, like massaging people. I got the first interview call from the company I work for now on my cell while I was visiting them last year and I was excited, obviously - it was only the second nibble of interest I'd had for the cool European jobs I was feverishly applying for - but I think my parents were even more excited than I was. They want us all to be successful and well placed in the world. Who couldn't understand that?

Ahhhhh. I worry about them, they worry about me, I worry about them worrying about me, I tell Mum I'm in analysis and they worry about me worrying about them worrying about me. Still, that's love and I'm lucky that's the way it is. What a life.