Hey everyone!
For the last 10 days I had the pleasure of having my family around for an after-Christmas celebration. It was a very fascinating time for I found myself dancing between two realities simultaneously and often unconsciously. For the last three years I have been living in the United States and have adapted to quite a relaxed routine here. It never occurred to me how relaxed it was until you thrust three new people into the dynamic. What was very fascinating was my automatic adoption of the role of head cook and bottle washer and how draining that could be. I couldn't expect my boys of 19 & 21 nor my 75 year old mother to take over the kitchen. Besides, I could keep the damage and mess to one main area if I chaperoned or navagated.
In my current reality my hubby and I approach each meal with a laissez faire and it can often take a couple hours before we make a decision of what we are going to eat. That means that there are no set times for meals and often my hubby will fend for himself just because he wants to. Here with my boys coming home, there was a small portion of that when they raided the fridge between meals but the main meal prep was left to me.
Now this is not me complaining at all for I did enjoy making meals for a larger group of people. There is something special that happens when you make a big pot of spaghetti that can feed 10 people and I had missed cooking in those quantities. What really struck me was the fact that my mom didn't seem to realize that I was a 50+ (barely but still over 50 lol) woman who could handle herself in a kitchen.
The real exposure to this lack of understanding came about when I was making the donuts seen below:
The first step to any bread making endeavor is to have the dough done perfectly. She was constantly knit picking every step I was making in regards to the dough and my processes. The ironic part of this experience was that she is the first person to tell me that I make better bread dough than she does so I wasn't sure what was happening here. I remember stepping back mentally from the situation thinking about why I would bring such a critical personality at this specific time. That brief pause did help me from not reacting badly to my mother for I still haven't figured out yet what it was. Apparently though I still let some attitude slip a few times for my husband brought it to my attention how my tone lowered when I was talking to my mother. I remember stating to her that I was paying attention to her when I was growing up so I didn't need to be micro-managed. My son had heard that as well and raised a proverbial eyebrow at my husband and wondered if I was going to blow my top. Thankfully it never escalated to anything besides that comment and our donuts were born.
My first train of thought revolved around a little pity party for myself because my mom didn't know who I was. I almost started to go down the familiar path of feeling invisible and getting sad over that again but something stopped me. I thought about why I would create this reality and wondered if there was a different way to look at it. My mind then created some different thought pathways that have helped with the scenario:
- Busy Bee
My mother was in a complete hurricane of financial and emotional mess when I lived at home with her. My dad was a tropical storm all on his own and whatever he touched, my mother was the disaster relief. Looking back at the scene with a different set of eyes had me thinking of how a woman in that state could really assess my knowledge absorption. Working with hot oil like that is stressful enough, never mind wondering how I was learning the process. I needed to cut her some slack for those small little details may have been important to remember but under those circumstances I'm surprised she remembered me there at all. What really brought it home to me is when I tried to remember some small details of my son's pasts and I couldn't recall some of the them.
- Under Cover
What really struck home for me was the thought that my mother didn't know me or recognize that I was somewhat accomplished in the ways she taught me. This is a woman that you would expect should know me the best but she sadly doesn't. At first I wanted to just emanate all my sadness towards her but then another thought came to my mind. Was I myself around my mother? If I was in a defensive state reacting to my environment when I was with her could she have seen the real me? Also, how could I expect my mom to know me when I didn't even know myself? I decided to use this as a spring board to presenting myself to her now so that she could learn about me. This meant that I can't speak barbs at what she doesn't know and focus on the positive instead.
Despite the fact that those donuts were devoured in a few short days, the lessons from them will last forever.