Photo: Complete Organizing Solutions, Tanna Clark
Some folks just don't get it. They don't get what we're trying to do here in our household. It's not as if what we are doing is new. Once upon a time before the invention of plastic and the revolution of the nuclear age–which tore apart the nuclear family–families lived with their elders. I'm not knocking the benefits of living in one's home apart from one's parents. I moved two states away from my family and advocate that every college bound freshman should move away from their home town and then away from their college town and not back to their hometown for their first job. But, as most families will vouch, there's benefits in being near one's family. Benefits that I missed in raising my child two states away from any family members. Taken one step, farther (or closer,) which is what we're doing, my new mother-in-law lives with Husband 2.0, my daughter and I. She has an in-law suite in our home. As I write about here, stereotypes exist for a reason. Often there's a nugget of truth in them. The problem lies when one generalizes for an entire population. Hence, I don't have a naggy, craggy ol' mother-in-law. I have a funny, fun-loving, hip–even–mother-in-law, though I have to say she is a bit wacky, albeit endearingly so.
What has surprised me about our old-new relationship is what she is teaching me. What she is infusing–that's badly needed–into my life: Time. Slow down. I spent 30 minutes this morning with her. Thirty minutes I'd planned to spend in a coffee shop before an 8 a.m. breakfast meeting, getting a jump on the day's computer work. That ol' ball-and-chain thing reinvented. But, instead, I sat on the sofa. Showed her pictures on my laptop.
The Mother-in-Law* reminds me to slow down. To look at the birds. When I went to give her a goodbye hug this morning and told her how much I loved her, I told her she was good for me, for these reasons. I added that she would turn my attention to hers–fascinated by a bird or an ant. I told her I'd seen an ant just this morning, crawling up a post-it note affixed to my computer. "OH! You saw an Ant?!" She asked, wide-eyed and excited. I told her yeah, I saw an ant. What I didn't say was that in the next second, I smushed it between my index finger and thumb….I don't think she's approve. But, her heart brimming with laughter and love, she'd forgive me quickly. And, as how her mind works these days–forget it in the next nanosecond. I've read that's a gift of the aging. Forgetting also means being in the Now. I am grateful for the reminder….
*A reader-friend recently challenged me on my usage of the "The Mother-in-Law." He knew I did not use mean to infer negativity with my choice reference. As I clarified to him and will here, I have, since beginnig my social media pilgrimage in 2007, referred to my wedded one as "Husband 2.0," and, formerly as "The Boyfriend," then "The Fiance." My former husband is "The Wuzband," or "Wuzband." Continuing in this tradition, I refer to R. as "The Mother-in-Law." Hopefully no content in my blog supports any negative association with how I refer to her here. I do not believe in flogging relatives or most other people via this site.
