I Am a Pretzel

"Hey, sweetie, you're falling down on the job," Robin says, snapping me out of my daze.

"Sorry," I say, though I can't remember where we were in our conversation, or what I was supposed to be doing with the lights. I generally don't help with this task because I am too busy baking or shopping or planning a meal. I think, if I am honest, that what I miss most this year is the flurry of energy and activity. I was always the producer of Christmas, and now I don't have that job anymore. Still, even when we visited the kids the past couple of holidays, they didn't give me much to do. I felt relegated to the sidelines.

"I'll tell you one thing I won't miss this Christmas." Robin cuts into my thoughts again. "Sleeping on a goddamn air mattress in someone's basement. I'm getting too old for that."

I chuckle, not only at all the times I've watched my six-foot-four husband on hands and knees trying to rouse his twisted body after a night on the floor but also at how he brings me back to reality. What am I really longing for? I ask myself.

"I'm certainly not going to miss shopping for Christmas dinner—on Christmas Eve—and then paying for everything," I offer.

Few of our get-togethers with the kids are ever cheap or free from trauma, and I always end up turning myself into a pretzel so that I don't step on anyone's toes. At Luke's, most of the trouble starts in the kitchen. According to him, I barely know how to toss a salad, let alone empty the dishwasher or put the garbage in the proper bag. I sense a certain anger toward me from time to time—a frustration that I cannot anticipate how he wants things done—whether I'm unpacking the groceries, playing on the floor with his children, strapping them into their car seats, or cleaning up the toys on the nursery floor.

I don't know quite what he wants me to be at this age. Perhaps now that he has his autonomy he thinks that he can make me what I wasn't for him all along, and that I will grow into the mother he once longed for me to be. Or perhaps this is another version of what Andy revealed to me—that I happen to be the only one right now he can resist, dismiss, or be frustrated with. It is safe for him to complain about how I make a salad or fold clothes because that won't upset the precarious equilibrium he and his wife, as young parents, have at home; besides, he's learned I won't fight back. I suppose there is an honor in here somewhere.

Another plus about not visiting this Christmas is that I don't have to worry about getting in trouble with the girls. Learning how to dance with my daughters-in-law has been the hardest adjustment I've made since the boys got married. It seems as if, without even trying, I have gotten into my share of pickles. Bestowing gifts and helping them with moves and babies never earned me the points I had expected. The latest faux pas happened when I went to Luke's to help after their second child was born. Because they were getting ready to remodel their house, I jumped right in and began reorganizing a very messy basement, inadvertently tossing away some undelivered Christmas gifts. Although good intentions abounded, I nonetheless incurred my daughter-in-law's wrath. It really wasn't about the gifts in the end—it was that I overstepped another woman's boundaries: her house, her things, her secrets even, which might have been stashed in the basement she did not ask me to clean. She took her anger out on Luke, which then left him caught between his wife and his mother. I skulked out of the house at
the end of my stay and felt awful that my visit had caused trouble rather than the hoped-for peace.

Click here to read the previous excerpt.

Read all my articles by clicking here and adding me as a friend!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself is the currently featured book in the Getting Better All The Time group. Written by Joan Anderson, it's a story about finding yourself and what's important in your life. To join the group and stay on top of all of the new articles and excerpts, click here.

Click here to buy the book.

Meet Joan Anderson in person. Click here for the workshop schedule!