I had thought, Whew! I narrowly escaped from 'Imitating Mommy' syndrome. But yesterday, as I was rinsing out the shampoo bottle to use the last dregs sticking at the bottom before I threw the bottle away, I experienced epiphany. Damn! Cut my head off and feed it to the vultures, I am my Mother.
I am doing the exact same thing my mother does. All my attempts at trying to be different from my mother have not worked. It is, as if after the age of 30, a dormant gene in my body has suddenly taken a life of its own and is commanding me to do the same things my mother does. And that too the same things I had scoffed at, some 15 years back.
Don't get me wrong, I love my mother and I respect her. She is a strong woman and a kind person. I would not want anyone else as my mother (this is for those people, who were ready to pounce on me with their harsh comments). My mom was raised in a lower middle class family and so was my father. They got married when there was extreme rationing because of war. They have always been thrifty throughout their lives. That is the way they were brought up and so that is the way they are. All said and done, secretly all daughters want to be as different as possible from their mothers.
My mother reuses milk poly bags after she has thoroughly washed them. She uses the bags to pack assorted items while traveling or for packing my lunch. I used to feel ashamed to use the bags when I was younger. Now, I realize that it is so good for the planet, since she is reusing the bags several times. I have started reusing plastic boxes of ice cream or takeout food containers. I use them to store pasta, sugar and other such items.
I have started collecting rubber bands, pieces of satin ribbons and gift wrapping paper. If you peek under my mattress, you will find a layer of shiny, new plastic shopping bags from assorted stores. I have a whole collection of them from places I have shopped from, I fold them and lovingly tuck them under the mattress for later use.
As a teenager, I felt, it was so miserly to squeeze out every last molecule from a tube of toothpaste. Not so any more. If it would have been possible I would have torn apart the tube and licked off the toothpaste. I have not tried this yet, cause hubs will not take kindly to such behavior.
These days, I always try to find the cheapest place to buy groceries and vegetables, even if it means walking that extra mile. Gone are the days when I thought of convenience over cost.
I think it is a waste of electricity and money to keep lights switched on in passageways. I get anxious quite fast and check all the windows to see if they are locked before I step out of the house or before I sleep. I also check the gas knobs to see that they are shut properly every night.
In recent years, I have become interested in cooking (I just bit my tongue), I cook various dishes, experiment and even enjoy it to some extent. Cooking was always my nemesis but these days I find it therapeutic and this is the scariest change I have ever seen in myself. It is actually bizarre for me to accept it ( I am sure, my sisters just fainted after reading this and so did Mom).
They say (Don't ask me who 'they' is, I have no clue) women start behaving like their mothers, the older they grow. I have seen these signs in my eldest sister since the past few years. My older sister, though not there yet is also showing some signs just like me. The day I start talking about random stuff and hopping from topic to topic at break neck speed, that will be the day I have completed the transformation.
'The apple does not fall far from the tree'
Do you feel that you have grown up to be like your Mother/Father?P.S: Call me a cheapskate if you want…I am proud of it.
Is your mother my mother? She does all this too :)
But yes, for a while, I did not want to be anything like her not because she was no wonderful, bt just because I think I was in my phase of rebelling :) But now when I see myself, I see so many things that my mother does, in me. Sub consciously, we do pick up on things from our mothers(fathers).