BUCKING THE SYSTEM: MOTHER'S DAY JOURNEY: MAMA TO MOTHER TO MOM TO FRIEND

There's not another mother in this world quite like mine.

Portia Zellars is intelligent and wise, spiritual and religious, a leader and a team player, a classy sophisticate and a funky chic. She's a Renaissance woman, able to do or accomplish anything if she's given enough notice.

Sure I'm writing this because it's Mother's Day -- it's just an added bonus that it's true. My mom is like this multi-talented She-ra that just blasts her competition out of the water.

Like most kids, I haven't always appreciated my mom. I mean, she and I have been there in my 28 years on this planet.

"There" is just about any place, any situation you could imagine a mother and daughter going. It reflects both the good times and the bad, our happiest and most grief-filled days.

It's the times when she threatened my life to my face, and I stuck my tongue out while her back was turned. It's the moments when I was punished for my own good or protected from my dad's wrath.

Our relationship has been in constant flux in our nearly three decades together, changing with the tides of my level of maturity. Take, for example, the early years.

As a youngster, I was an only child for a time and my mother was my life. I called her Mama then, and we were very close. We talked, we walked, we sang and we studied together, just happy to be near each other.

One of her favorite stories involves the night she went into labor with my sister, Clarissa. Mom was up pacing the floor to try to relieve the pain. I was only 4 at the time, and I watched her as she stretched to relieve the pressure in her back.

"Mama, you walking?" I asked, unsure what was going on.

"Yes, baby, mama needs to walk a little while," she answered.

"Then I'm gonna walk too," I said as I stood, grabbed my back and began to pace the floor.

It's not a bad story, and it symbolizes how close we were at that time. That, of course, changed when my pituitary gland started sending crazy messages throughout my body.

These were the bad times, when I became way too grown for my own good. Mama became Mother at that point, because I was an extremely intelligent, capable individual who wouldn't deign to call my mother something as trifling as Mama.

As the new name became habit for me, our wonderful relationship was abandoned so I could lock myself in the bathroom and read romance novels without distraction. I don't think my mom ever liked being called Mother, but she tolerated it without much complaint.

I now can admit I was a horror to be around during these years. I knew everything and had disdain for the ignorant drudges I shared my life with. I rarely joined family conversations and took the grown ups at my church to a baaaad place.

I remember once during a car trip to Memphis, my mom let me know she didn't like the Tamara she was living with at that time.

"You know, you used to be a fun person to take a trip with," she said, never taking her eyes from the road. "You and I used to talk about anything and have a ball. Now you just sit there."

Ouch. Those words spoken in a tone only a mother can use were able to cut to the quick, even through MY blue funk. I never forgot them, and I put my book away for the rest of that trip.

After going away to college, I began to understand the value of having a mother who cared about me. It helped that my hormones quieted and my pituitary gland apparently went back to normal.

This was when my mom became Mom. This was a neat, upbeat name that let people know I liked this person who gave birth to me. This was about the same time Mom and I again became friends.

I'm still somewhat in the Mom stage, but I now interchange the titles based upon the situation. Because I am now married with children, I quite often refer to my mother as Granny, the name she has selected to recognize her title as Queen of the Grandmothers.

We've been on a long journey together, my mom and I. Now I'm a mother to boys, not girls, and she takes delight in reminding me my adventure is only beginning. It will be an adventure different, but mostly similar, to the one I took her on.

I'm Mommy to my boys right now. God only knows what my future holds.