A year ago today, I was busy getting ready to host my mom’s cousins for dinner. We were going to do a combination gathering. A two birds with one stone kind of thing, a meal to celebrate Phil’s birthday, belatedly and our East Coast cousins visiting California.
I was a bit grumbly. My mom is in the habit of asking me to host gatherings. There is something that feels performative about it. I usually do it because as much as I complain, I want to be a good daughter.
When I make choices based on wanting to be a good daughter, they tend to backfire-on me. A recent example was when I agreed to have someone rent out a room. This was before the Covid-19 Pandemic. I was living alone. Kids gone, was-bands gone. I was blissfully happy. Each morning, I would wake up thinking about how happy I was. It felt almost greedy on my part.
Luckily, my mom delivered a solution to mitigate my greedy bliss. She had made friends with a woman who was looking for a place to stay for a couple months. She was studying and would be very busy. I would hardly know she was there. ‘There’ meaning here, in my house.
I agreed to meet the woman. It was the least I could do. Afterall, my mom could not stop reciting her resume, and I could not stop worrying that I would become one of those people who can only live alone. You know, the person who requires everything to be just so and can hardly restrain themselves when you pick up something and put it back in not quite the right spot.
I said ‘yes’ to this woman staying at my house for a few months. Really, I was saying ‘yes’ to my mom. As time went on, our mismatch became increasingly clear. I began to feel like an unwanted guest in my own home. I knew things were really bad when my Netflix queue was interrupted by her viewing my shows.
The good news is that she did eventually leave, I got back all the shelves in the refrigerator, and my shows on Netflix waited obediently for me and only me to watch them. The better news is that I am now working on having a good relationship with my mom, instead of being the good daughter.
