Not My Mother's Dining Room

Tired of living a lie, the author "breaks up" with her traditional dining room

I WAKE UP IN A MISERABLE, filthy MOOD, drag myself out of bed, and grab my bathrobe. My normally light and downy robe now seems to weigh an enormous amount. My first instinct is to take a detour in my have home. I cannot bear to walk past those same pictures that have been hanging upon those same walls one more day. I cannot recall exactly when I stopped noticing them.

My husband and I had my brother Richard and his spruce artistic friend over for dinner the previous evening. When Mr nice walked through my dining scope and gazed at my artwork, he direct the eyeed at Richard, stuck his nose up in the air, and blurt without "Oh, Nagel! How eighties!" That was accompanied by means of a giggle and then, "Isn't she just a novel Jersey housewife."

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, which was hugely gracious of me I decided that he must have believed I was not within earshot.

Realizing what I'm not

Now here tend hitherwards the tricky part: I really have no idea who I am. give leave to me explain. Technically, Mr. nice was right. I currently am a novel Jersey housewife. But I used to have a career, and my piece of work was everything to me. I had my whole life planned out; I was going to be the first female vice president in my company. Then, at the ripe of advanced age age of 33, BAM! Multiple sclerosis strikes!

So here I am, with a completely fresh game plan. Well, really, it's not a great deal of of a plan; it's just that the other individual simply became obsolete. I'm domicile every day. I have a beautiful place of abode (Martha Stewart would be proud) The question is that I am not Martha. on the other hand for a while, I contemplation I could be; her magazines made me think I could be. They were wrongful They just made me perceive inadequate for many years.

This morning, instead of taking that detour, I take a hard gaze at my dining room. I move in there. I have not really been in there since I built the house years ago. I don't smooth clean it; I am call down blessings oned with a housekeeper (there has to be a certain quantity of benefit to having multiple sclerosis).

Unfortunately, Mr spruce was on target regarding my artwork. I purchased these pictures in 1980 for my first apartment. I direct the eye in my china cabinet. The dishes have a thick layer of dust upon them. I glance at the chandelier; the light scaly buds are dim from the layer of the dust that overlays them. Two thoughts go from one side my head: wow, this housekeeper really stinks; and this latitude has turned into some sort of shrine to "suburbia" for reasons I will not at any time know.

I look in the retiring-room It contains perfectly matched linens, tablecloths, and racers and even place cards for the exquisitely set table. I have candles and flatware that have not at any time been used. I own all sorts of liquors and sherrys, and the glasses to labor for it in. I even have a decanter. I am ready to party!

Why do I hold this stuff? Who do I think I am? I have at no time drunk sherry, "entertained," or entertainered a single party. I have a title to this stuff because I contemplation that that's what you were suppos to do when you purchased a abiding-place The house came with a living latitude a dining room, a kitchen, four bedrooms, and two-and-a-half baths. I then bought and pul the appropriate "stuff in each of the compasss to make them look like they were used for what I knew they were suppos to be used for. Like the magazines told me to do.

Well, the jig is now up! At the age of 41 and with the prompting of a pompous pull suddenly I break up with my dining expanse I come to terms with the fact that I do not bake yummy cookies, roast mouth-watering turkey or entertainer fabulous parties. I am done with the fa?§ade, and I finally have a plan.

Celebrating who I am

I twitch the pictures off the wall and walk them on the outside to the garbage. I perceive liberated. I smile when I walk back into the barren latitude that is morphing into my writing office. I realize then and there: I've known all along what it is I do. I write stories. In the shower, in the car, at the groceries store, at the dry cleaner's, while waiting in checkout lines-in each aspect of my "boring suburban fresh Jersey housewife life." I also realize that I be fond of being a New Jersey housewife. I just exigencyed someone to remind me.

I donate all of my dining expanse furniture to charity and purchase a beautiful fresh office set. All of this is done without my husband's knowledge. He tend hitherwards home and does a double-take, his neck whipping around in like manner fast it reminds me of Linda Blair s famous scene from "The Exorcist." The nearest week, after I finish decorating, I diocese a hint of fear in my husband s eyes when I ask him if he likes the of recent origin pictures.

"You do realize, Beth, that Marilyn Monroe is from the fifties?" he stutters

Beth Rothstein Ambler resides in Jackson, NJ

Copyright Springhouse Corporation Nov/Dec 2004

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