I've Been Avoiding You

It's not you. It's me.

I've stayed away from the blog for the past week as the topic most on my mind is one I'm not sure how to broach:

The Impending Visit of the Mother-in-Law.

My anxiety level has been rising as the arrival gets closer (this weekend). It probably started when R. announced a few weeks ago that she had finally bought her plane ticket. And then rose quickly when I realized that no return date is set.

I've only spent a few days with Amma at her mother's house in Kerala. We've talked on the phone many times but we've never lived under the same roof for any extended period. Living with someone always involves getting used to quirks and likes and dislikes and either learning to set boundaries or just letting go. R. says she might want to cook for us and help with the baby, household jobs that are currently a big part of my daily life. This creates the natural "opportunity" for either getting lots of welcome help or discovering ways to rub each other completely the wrong way. Then there's my natural introvert nature: periodically I need time alone to recharge myself, away from conversation and interaction with other people. Will it offend her if I regularly disappear?

It doesn't help that I just finished Leaving India, an interesting chronicle of a Gujarati family's migration across the globe. A few choice comments generalizing about the Indian mother-in-law spiked my anxiety even more:

Whole soap-opera series revolve around the drama of mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law....Offscreen, almost every daughter-in-law has horror stories, especially if she has lived with her in-laws for any length of time. Some of these complaints are no doubt exaggerated or manufactured, but....Certain mothers-in-law have made a career of acting the martyr part.

Whoa.

The author goes on to document her cousin's horrible relationship with her mother-in-law, in which the in law, among other things, threatened to burn herself to death with kerosene and worked to isolate her son's wife from her family.

Of course, I guess the story and generalizations could and probably could happen to any daughter-in-law from any country. But just to freak myself out even more (I'm good at worrying about things that haven't even happened yet) I searched the web for tales to prove the above generalization and found a whole web site dedicated to reports of hellish in laws of the female kind which included several juicy tales from wives of Indian men.

Whatever happens will happen. I'm assuming that I'm fearing the worst and the coming visit will be filled with both a mix of sweet moments and the usual bumps along the way that I have with my own family when they visit. If any tales of horror can be told, I'm not sure how much I'll be checking in and reporting on this blog. In fairness to my husband and my new "Amma" I've got to give us all a chance to learn how to live with each other.

Heaven knows I'm no Snow White or Cinderella. For all I know, Amma might be Twittering about me while she's here.