Okay... let me back up for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.
Some time ago, I discovered one of the greatest bands ever, and have been stoked for their fifth studio album, Asylum, since I first heard in mid-July that it was coming out on August 31st. I'd been counting down the days and bringing it up in conversation over and over and over again.
Now, of course, being the unfortunately unemployed college student I am, I have no way of actually buying said album whatsoever, so I was intending to spend the totality of the 31st glued to YouTube.
So I had made it through the third song on the CD before my mom comes home from work and hands me this:
I am so fucking psyched about this. Not just because it is easily the best album by the best band ever, and not just because I had been looking forward to it for a month and a half, but — let me put the emphasis where it actually is:
My MOM got me Asylum!!!
My incredibly Mormon mother, who took issue with my Die Prophezeiung album because it detracted from the spirit. My incredibly Mormon mother, who would no doubt feel the need to take a spiritual shower after hearing the album she just got me. My incredibly Mormon mother, who just got me a pointedly not-Mormon album without asking for anything in return.
This is now, unquestionably, my favorite Disturbed album ever. Hell, it's my favorite album ever. But because of context, rather than content.
This album, to me, is a powerful gesture of a kind of live-and-let-live love. We have our polarizing ideological differences — as exemplified by my taste in music and hers — but she still bought me something I really wanted, as a gift, no strings attached, without dwelling on what it was.
This really means a lot to me. I still loathe your stance on gay marriage, mom, but damn it, this means a lot. Your fellow Mormons may look down on you for losing your husband and your eldest son to Atheism. Maybe that makes you a bad Mormon.
But god damn, you're a fucking awesome mom.
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