Turning into Mum!

It is official now: I have turned into my mum, or into almost everybody’s mum, for that matter. Weird thing about it is that I don’t even mind.

Whenever I had a problem when I was younger I used to complain about mum-type people. They never seemed to be compassionate, all they came up with was advice while I wanted to shout, scream, cry, tell the story in all the gory details, probably even exaggerate a bit. I wanted to use the full range of theatrical intonation in my voice, and then when everything was said, I wanted to hear something like: 'Oh you poor thing, I know, it’s so bad, I know exactly what you are talking about.' This inevitably would lead to a new round of re-telling the story, wringing it for the last bit of sentiment. Depending on the severity, this could go on for days, talking to different girlfriends, who then would re-tell it between them until it would come back to me. After a while eventually we would run out of steam and the emotional baggage of the issue would have been evaporated into thin air. Some of the problems might not even have deserved that term, so solutions were not actually needed, while the ones needing attention would have been resolved by people with practical thinking in the meantime. Everybody with a common sense would try to move heaven and hell to make this drama stop.

Later in life two things happened: Firstly I moved on to other places and all of a sudden the trusted girl friends had gone, and the older one gets the more difficult it is to find likeminded spirits. And secondly, the ‘cute’ had left the building. See, it helps if one is calling a certain cuteness one’s own. All those rants coming from an ugly face don’t work as well compared to big eyes and a quivering pout telling the story. Unfortunately this advantage fades over time and one realises... Sh... it’s not working the way it used to anymore.

All of a sudden I had to find the solutions myself, or poor hubby had to compensate. He had to listen, and he had to help solve. I only know now, that I mutated into my mum-ish self, how lucky I am to have him. And I got lucky in another respect: I found a mentor! He was the person who patiently listened to my rants for one last time, asked the right questions at the right moment, and made me think.

Well and now that I am done with thinking, I find myself not wanting to rant about things anymore. I want to tackle them head on! Want to get it done and over with. I now find that it is the prerogative of the youth to spend all that time on worrying, ranting and moaning. I am not willing to spend this amount of time on negativity anymore, and although I don’t want to be younger – God forbid – I sometimes would like to have some of the time back that I wasted back then. Now that I am running out of it, I would like to tell all these youngsters... don’t do this! Find a solution and get on with your lives.

Of course they don’t appreciate this advice – I wouldn’t have!

And I am not bothered, really. History, it seems, will stay forever young: It will repeat itself over and over again, and in 30 years time they might read my story and think: Darn... she was right!