Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Twinkle: Moving On With My Day

OK. Last post on this subject for the moment.

I am walking away from this right now and choosing to go about my day. I’m going to swap out my regular dishes for the Passover dishes, which I like. They’re pretty, and I get to use them once a year, because I refuse to have a tacky Passover with paper and plastic everything, the way MIL does. 

Today, in this house, I can control the pretty Passover dishes that we use. I can fix my husband a nice lunch of chicken salad and fruit. We don’t have any Passover food here, although I’m sure my MIL will send some since she thinks I’m incapable of providing meals for my family. So fine, we might use some of that, but I ordered groceries—not thousands of dollars worth of gross processed Passover food, like she buys, but natural, unprocessed foods for my family that also fall within the rules. I am going to make a few things for the family to eat as meals or snack on, and get out my pretty dishes, and not let her into my head.

What I’m trying to say is that two things can be true at the same time: I can not let her get into my head, not let it eat at me when I’m going about my life. That’s a choice, and it doesn’t affect her either way, so I might as well choose not to give her space in my head. But, in situations like last night, when she behaves in a way that’s hurtful, I’m allowed to feel what I feel. Saying I don’t care—actually not caring—doesn’t mean that I don’t get to feel my feelings when she does something mean. 

So today, she’s not allowed in my head (after I finish this post). I’ll go about my day and make it a nice one. Tonight, if she behaves in a way that’s hurtful, I’m allowed to feel hurt in the moment, but I need to meet it with grace. What she doesn’t get to do is be in my head when I’m going about my day.

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