Things are getting pretty tense withthe mother
The spell of re-nesting — the practice of moving back in with one’s parent long after supposedly becoming an adult yourself — is nearly, mercifully, at an end. It’s been an ordeal at times, and it has given Himself a long overdue insight into the myriad ways that female blood relations can torture one another with something as simple as a well-timed ‘OK’ that is uttered in the most innocent of tones, but laden with subtext and accusation.
Coming from a male-dominated family, Himself has found living alone under one roof with two genetically linked, feuding women, to be intensely stressful. I will admit that our particular style of argument is something to behold. In a matter of minutes, subject matter can spin from the state of the utility room, to the year 1999 when I lied about going to see Toy Story 2, and instead went drinking in the cinema car park.
En route from topic A to topic B, she might touch on the dress I’m wearing, my lack of lipstick, or the fact that I refused to do a seventh subject in my Leaving Cert. I might, in turn, suggest that my dress is not something I asked her opinion about, and that perhaps, three decades on from my birth, she needs to cut the umbilical cord and stop micro-managing every aspect of my life. In the midst of one of our latest arguments, Himself hit breaking point, and got up and left the room.
Our flow momentarily interrupted, Herself and I were briefly united in our confusion. Was he coming back? Would he be eating the rest of his roast potatoes? It didn’t occur to us that the fighting might have been getting to him, that as a peaceful sort of person he doesn’t feed off the oppositional atmosphere in the way we do.
Individually, she and I are not argumentative people, but when we come together, we do seem to derive a kind of life force from our rows. Our mutual rage affair gets the blood up; it’s practically cardio — and it’s also the only explanation for how Herself stays so trim. She literally angsts the pounds right off through railing at me for such minor infractions as using a knife rather than a peeler when I’m making this delicious spicy sweet potato soup, or for wearing my hair wavy instead of straight.
She seems to have an unending capacity for giving a toss about these minor issues, and this is how she wins all our arguments. I, on the other hand, lack the patience for prolonged pissiness and will inevitably apologise first, out of sheer boredom with the fight. On this night, my apology was to Himself who was lying upstairs in my childhood bedroom.
“Are you coming back?” I ventured. “I just can’t take all the rowing any more,” came his subdued response. “Sorry,” I said sounding not very sorry at all probably. “Relax, we’re just chatting, that’s how women and their mothers chat,” I explained. “In that case, that better not be a girl,” he nodded glumly at my round belly. “I don’t think I could live like this permanently.”