Please Go!

Please GO and take you mother with you!! I just need a moment of silence with myself. I cannot take another command. “No put the dish over there.” “No, rinse the dish before you put it into the dishwaher.” Me, “I **sigh** did, Ammi”. “Well then rinse it again”, she says. “Now run the dishwasher, you didn’t do it last night.” “Okay.”, I mutter even though inside I am screaming, “why don’t YOU run the dishwasher? Why does the dishwasher HAVE to be run at night? STOP telling me what to do like I’m a child or worse yet, a servant!”

I continue to play dumb daughter-in-law who doesn’t know the fist thing about anything because it is the only way to save my sanity. I can’t stand to be managed in my own home. I can’t stand someone breathing down my neck and telling me that I cook stew, meatloaf or spaghetti wrong; advise on biryani or pulao I can take, but American classics I cannot.

The whole respect your elder thing, and of course the language barriers complicates things even more. Help! Don’t get me wrong, I am more than respectful, too much so, I think, but I still makes me want to run for the hills. The alternative….work long hours and sleep as often and late as possible.

Two months down and three to go.