My mother is currently visiting me.
I’ve previously written about the bliss of going back to my parents’ house, subverting responsibilities for one exquisite week; my only responsibility to just be an overgrown, hungry child.
The experience on the other side – when mom visits me – isn’t quite the same.
The first week was like playing Tetris with my emotional health. Every time an annoyed emotion popped up, I had to expertly maneuver my scream to the bottom and clamp a grateful smile over it.
Like when she took a look at the two overflowing laundry hampers in the corner of my room, then proceeded to run the washing machine day and night until they were completely empty.
All of my entreaties, explaining how this was my system, how these hampers have been this full since I moved in, or how I don’t even wear the clothes at the bottom anymore, fell on profoundly deaf ears.
I’ve realized that the problem is this: I simply don’t know how to be an adult around my mother, in my adult space. I know how to go back to being a child in her home, but when she’s in mine, nobody understands what roles need to be assumed. Fellow adult? Child-mother? Friends? Roommates? Landlord-tenant?
But I have decided to adopt one role: zen-like acceptance.
“Shika, this lamp looks wrong here, so I have moved it, bought a new stool, and placed both right in front of the TV where it should’ve been all along.”
“This bowl, that is apparently your most favorite, loved bowl in the whole universe? It has a chip, so while you were sleeping, I made it a pot for a new plant. It now lives outside.”
“I know that you are trying to eat your body weight in protein every day to stay healthy and fit. But I have made elaborate, decadent, multi-course meals that are almost only carbs, you will eat that.”
But then, there’s also:
“I reorganized your desk drawer.” My chest tightens. “And I bought you new pens.”
“I made you dinner!” I brace for gluten, ghee, and gout. But it tastes like the entire idea, concept, and notion of ‘home’.
When I was 15, I used to think being an adult meant having a fridge with a filled crisper drawer and yellow lighting in all rooms. Now I know it means defending chipped bowls like heirlooms.
I’m grateful to have her here. Even if she rearranged my entire home like it’s an old Barbie dreamhouse set.
What this visit reminded me, though, is how much I rely on invisible systems. The chipped bowl, the double hamper, the way I plan my day, the lamp that was in front of the window — they all serve a purpose.
Kind of like rituals, the quiet, repeatable things that hold my day together. Even if someone else wouldn’t notice them at first glance.