Current Quandary

Those six words just won me Narrative Magazine’s Six-Word Story Contest. So there’s already something good resulting from my mother-in-law moving in 12 days ago.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to state that the contest’s six-word limit forced me to take some creative liberties. For one thing, she is not under our roof, she is in the cabin we built next to our house. For another, “sanity” isn’t really the right word, because my mother-in-law (from here on out I’m referring to her as MIL or maybe Milly) isn’t really driving me crazy (honest). But the word “sanity” packed more of an emotional wallop than “adjustment” or “personal growth” (which is two words anyway). And I fully recognize that it isn’t just “my” adjustment — all three of us are adjusting, MIL perhaps most of all — but the narrative arc of my six-word story necessitated the use of that particular possessive pronoun.

Okay, so I got all that out of the way and if MIL ever reads this (hopefully never) she will forgive me for exaggerating for the sake of entertaining.

What’s it really like having your mother-in-law next door? In our case, I think it’s as close to parenting as two non-parents can get. It’s like having a teenager off on her own and under your roof both at the same time. There was this sense of excitement as we moved her into her new place. And a sense of concern those first few nights. “Do you think she’s okay over there by herself?” (As if she hadn’t been living on her own across town for decades and been perfectly fine.) “Should I take her dinner?” (”Don’t set precedent!” a friend said, but come on – she didn’t yet have groceries!) Helping her decorate and set up our cabin was fun, until we realized it is no longer our cabin but her personal space and, as such, what she hangs on the walls and accumulates on the coffee table is not within our domain of control (no matter how hard my husband keeps trying.) Thank goodness we all have a sense of humor. When Brian was explaining (okay, maybe lecturing) to MIL how she ought to do something, she responded with: “Goodness, how did I ever raise you without you to tell me how to do it?”

But like parenting, I think having MIL next door might end up being “The toughest job you’ll ever love” (oh wait, that’s the Peace Corps). In my heart, I know this is a good thing not just for her but for us. This is an opportunity to grow as a couple. To put another person’s needs above our own, at least some of the time. To endeavor together at something important. There will be boundaries to determine, and privacy to respect, and yes, perhaps, at times, even sanity to test — on both sides of the driveway. But in spite of all that, we’ll be glad we did it.

Oh God, at least I hope so.

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Posted in Mother-in-law Next Door | Tags: mother-in-law, parent moving in, six-word story