How can it be that I’m this happy? Happier than I’ve ever been before? When almost six months ago I was at my lowest low?
“So my friend Kate told me that I had a charmed life. That even when bad things happened to me, that for people like me, everything would turn out okay,” I say, feeling that everything has turned out more than okay.
“Yes, well, that’s Kate’s viewpoint. But were you happy before?” Eric kisses the top of my head.
“No. But I didn’t know it.”
“Exactly. Because it’s easier for some people to think they have it hard while others have it easy and, therefore, feel that ‘people like her’ have to slog through life unhappy because them’s the breaks. And it relieves her of any responsibility for making changes.”
He hit it on the head. The Tao of Caulder, I laugh to myself.
“But in fairness, I didn’t know I was unhappy, and so I didn’t change anything,” I say.
My old life was based on an illusion. It looked good on paper with my job and fiancé, but it was based on others’ beliefs of what a good life looked like. Though looking at Eric’s physique in my bed, I would say that this also wins as a version of what the good life looks like.
“When I was sitting at my mom’s house, I realized that I could sit in a chair and spend endless hours thinking of what I wanted to do,” Eric says. “But then I realized that sitting around spinning ideas and going over what if’s wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was only when I started volunteering and then going on the trip with my friend visiting coffee plantations that I learned that most answers reveal themselves by doing, not thinking.”
It’s true. Once I stopped with the recruiters and searching for the same job, opportunities came to me—Eric, Girls Run It, the consulting business. It wasn’t even a drastic life change, but it was enough that it brought me right here to the right life.
“Speaking of doing and not thinking …” I let my hand travel down his six-pack until I find what I’m looking for and when Eric suddenly pulls me on top of him, I think he catches my meaning.
Finally, it’s time for the last person I need to have some closure with. While it’s easy to let go of people like Neil and Stacey, I still need to have some understanding with the woman who birthed me. Which is why I invited her to lunch at my place. I worry that things might get heated because we won’t have an audience; but then I also worried that things would get heated and we’d have a restaurant full of people to witness it. I prepared us a gazpacho soup and spring rolls, and earlier Eric dropped off some raw chocolate-coconut truffles to have for dessert.
When my mother arrives, her demeanor is icy, and she walks in without saying a word. She looks around the place, noting the changes but still doesn’t say anything. Her eyes rest on my kitchen table, where I strategically placed the fertility clinic pamphlets she gave me. I see a small smile cross her lips. I don’t say anything about the pamphlets, but a look of understanding passes between us, and she accepts my peace offering.
“Would you like something to drink?” I offer.
“Do you have any iced tea?” she finally speaks.
“I do. Would you like some sweetener?” I know she doesn’t, but I ask anyway just to keep this conversational ball rolling.
“No, thank you.” When I bring her iced tea, she comments. “You redecorated.”
“Just a little bit. To make it more mine now.”
She shakes her head and harrumphs. “It’s you career girls. You want it all, but—”
“Mom, we haven’t talked in ages,” I say, cutting her off. “Can you please not criticize?”
She snorts. “Criticize? Darling, I’m just stating my opinion. Don’t be so sensitive.”
There is no way to respond to this without sounding “so sensitive,” so I don’t say anything.
As she sits down at the kitchen table and settles in with her iced tea, she says, “Criticizing? You want critical, you should’ve met your grandmother. Now she was a critical mother. A very difficult woman. You have no idea how hard that is to live with.”
I have some idea, but again feel that silence is my best option right now.
“I swore I’d never be that type of mother,” she continues. “But when you watch your children growing up, you want them to have everything. You don’t want them to suffer. For example, you were such a meek child, and I worried about you. So, yes, maybe I pushed you sometimes, but that’s because I wanted you to reach your potential.”
Here’s the thing: I’m thirty-five, and I can’t keep living for my mother’s approval. What she thought was my potential may have been misguided, but I can’t be angry with her anymore. I understand now: she controls because she cares.
“Mom, I wanted to have lunch with you because I’ve missed you. But also because I want you to see that I’m okay, and that you raised someone who can take care of herself, and who, when bad things happen, can fall on her feet. I know you worry about me, but this is really the happiest I’ve ever been.”
She shakes her head at me. “Is this what they taught you at that yoga retreat? Have you joined a cult? And what’s with your hair?” She picks up a strand of my hair. “What happened to the blond?”
I gird my stomach. “Too much upkeep. I’m going back to my natural color.”
She looks at me more closely. “I like it. It reminds me of when you were younger. The blond was too brassy anyway.”
I know this is her way of apologizing, and I’m okay with it.
“Thank you, Mom.”
She nods and then reaches over for one of the pamphlets on the table.
And though I’m no longer worried about her approval, when the time is right, I can’t wait for her to meet Eric. I know she’s going to love him, almost as much as I do.