Forgot To Fold The Laundry Again

So I work from home as a freelancer and take care of my mom who's 75. She’s got some health issues but she still wants to be in control and help out where she can. We’ve kind of settled into this dynamic that feels like DDLG, even though we never use those terms or labels. It’s just us both feeling comfortable with the roles and boundaries we set. Today was one of those days, I had a meeting on back-to-back calls until lunch time. By the end, my brain felt like mush and all I wanted was to lay down for an hour before getting back to work. My mom had given me this week’s chores list last night. It’s pretty short but it has laundry at the top of the list. She’s always reminding me that she can’t do as much heavy lifting anymore. I completely forgot about the laundry today until my mom said, “When are you folding the laundry? I saw it sitting there this morning.” And I just froze because I hadn’t done a thing on the list all day and now I was already an hour behind. So I told her I did it right after lunch but that’s not true, I didn’t do anything at all. Now, she didn’t call me out on it or even get mad. Just looked disappointed. And here we are with this weird little dynamic where my mom wants to know when chores are done and I feel like a kid getting away with something but also feeling guilty about not living up to the expectations. She’s letting me run things around the house, which is amazing for her health needs, but still reminding me of what she expects from me. I felt bad all day after that, even though it’s just laundry and I’m an adult who can decide when to do chores whenever. But in this weird headspace we’re in, lying about not doing something small feels like a big deal. Maybe tomorrow I’ll make up for it by finishing everything on the list early. So yeah, that was my day, forgetting one chore and feeling guilty about fibbing about it. Small stuff but it’s part of our little game of expectations and reality.