How to be a mother pt. 1

Don’t quit your job, was my mother’s advice. Like her usual self, sitting at the dining table, peeling an orange, she said so without looking at me. Sage advice, but she knew I would not comply. We both knew. It was a habit we’d picked up over the years - she’d tell me to, and I would not.

So I quit.

The first few months were dreamy. I took long walks, kickboxing classes, and started home projects. The weather was warm. Time felt infinite and on my side. I wondered why I didn’t quit sooner.

The first few months came and went. And then, I no longer knew what to do with myself. It was at that point when the fear of change turned small, and the fear that nothing would change took over.

After I’d quit, my mother said nothing. Just as she said nothing when I told her I would study Environmental Studies. Fresh out of high school and I wasn’t interested in any of the business schools. Her worrying heart kept her up at night. What will I do with a degree in Environmental Studies? How will I make a living? What will she tell her friends?

I knew all of this because she told me so, after I’d switched to Accounting a year later. Her relief was palpable through the phone. I told her the tuition will be a lot more, and she said whatever the cost, it’ll be worth it.

So when I told her I’d quit (to stay at home), I imagine she’d lamented quietly. Was it really worth it?

Perhaps not so quietly was the auntie who said out loud, you quit your job for a kid? (At the time, I had just one, and that threw off the bombastic calculation even more.)

***

When Bluish started to make a name for itself, it was an important vindication because it saved me from questions about what I did all day. When Sunday Sunday opened and my short story was published for the first time, it saved me from questions about what’s next and whether Arlene Dickinson was a good person.

Maybe I finally had enough things going on to silence even that auntie who’d asked that rude question.

But also, it was all very confusing for my own mother. Years after our episode was aired, she finally asked, what is Dragons’ Den?

I tried to answer but I didn’t do a good job. Translating the language was the easy part, but communicating the cultural context was not. And my mother’s crushing impatience made it even harder. We turned to silence.

She was peeling an apple this time, with a knife. I wanted to ask her why she gave me that advice all those years ago. I wanted to ask if she was disappointed when I quit my job. Did she think I would regret it, because children are meant to leave their parents? Was she afraid that I would end up lonely and disconnected from the world? Did she worry about me, that I’d feel sad and misunderstood? I wanted to offer some comfort, that maybe things will turn out differently for me than they did for her.

But I didn’t. And she kept peeling, in silence. The apple was for me.

Maybe being a mother means giving advice, and then quietly accepting whatever comes after.