Do you still have a safe place that welcomes you like a soft shell for the rest of the year, where you can find the strength to face the tasks and challenges of life?
This doesn’t happen to me very often. It almost never happens to me again. It’s a shame because it’s a good idea. I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t feel like a girl, where I’m on the front lines, in charge of myself and my world, and I can’t talk anymore. It’s not about being a mother and crossing the fence. It’s not about having to take care of people who need it more than we do. Feeling like a girl is a safe place to hide, it’s about the ability to step back and let others do the thinking for us. I worry that lack of authority is age-related. Sometimes you have to step up and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” There was a time when parents were a little childish and children were grown up. And I am, for all intents and purposes, perhaps even an adult myself.
Rest and relaxation with your family
While my children ate focaccia and cat ears and planted their own root vegetables between Christmas and New Year’s, my husband and I became stressed and forgetful. At fifty, we enjoy the luxury of a return to youth during this magical time, while the pressures of primary and secondary school are also driving our success. But instead of using unconscious, mindless vomiting to indulge in unsocial situations, tantric sex, or grocery parties, he and I slept. We slept like children, like dormitories, like people who haven’t slept in a year. There’s nothing better than to throw yourself into a deep sleep so that someone can take your place outside the door and put everything in order. When we reappear, someone has to watch over our sin: “Well, you’re comfortable!” Now you’ll be hungry. There’s also sweet taralli and tea waiting for you. Praise the irresponsibility of Christmas
But in the days leading up to Christmas I return to my soft, irresponsible shell. This happened when we visited my wife in a house near the sea in Bari, and suddenly I found myself happily alone and thought of doing the same thing again. “You can rest here” is an unwritten but iron rule within these walls. “Can I cook?” “Aren’t you going shopping?” “We have a full refrigerator.” Nature is glorified but they do not allow an exception to the sanctity of our laziness.
