How I Didn’t Become My Mother but Became Someone Else Entirely

Something terrible has happened. Life has gone seriously awry. I was always led to believe that eventually, sooner or later, and certainly by the time I am of any given age over 30 (which I am) I would become my mother. I looked forward with a certain amount of eager anticipation to the day I would be normally deranged artist who has little interest in cooking, cleaning and the whereabouts of any of her belongings. Surely I was destined to understand the great masters, have an inside-out knowledge of Greek myths and leave coffee cups in my studio until they moulded sufficiently to become art?

But no, events of the last week have revealed that I have become someone quite different.

This is what happened:

Christmas was over (as usually tends to happen this time of year) and thus I was impelled to remove Christmas and all its incumbent trappings from the sitting room. After the usual amount of indoor gardening (taking the chainsaw to the Christmas tree in order to dissolve it into small enough pieces to remove it from the room) I stood back to admire my now de-Christmased space.

It was a mess.

Had I been ever destined to become my mother I would simply have got out my sketch book and drawn the interesting shapes and textures that now inhabited the aforementioned space.

But instead I went to shopping. And bought baskets. Little baskets, medium sized baskets, large baskets and baskets that defied size categorisation. I was particularly pleased by the fact I only spent £6.

Into these receptacles I put:
books,
videos (not ‘Love Actually’ because I burnt that for making me cry) (you know, the scene with Emma Thompson) (if you don’t – don’t watch it) (well you can’t because it’s all melty and charred)
homework,
physics notes (the physicist was home and busy making copious notes that only Niels Bohr, Einstein and she understand),
hair bobbles of dubious vintage,
hair brushes of dubious functionality,
dirty plates of dubious heritage,
clean plates (probably only clean by the virtue of having been licked by kittens),
the tv,
a number of sofas
my life of celibacy
banal questions about the meaning of love,
and
most of my sanity.

I stand back to admire my work. ‘Wait!’ I cried, ‘insufficient soft furnishings!’ (this is strictly a girls house now so any of the Beloved’s objections to things soft are now irrelevant) (or at least not my problem)(we won’t delve further into the subject of the Beloved and things soft). So, I throw throws, I plump cushions, I range rugs, I place kittens strategically around the room, I tie little bows around things that might need little bows.

I stand back to admire my work. ‘Wait!’ I cried, ‘Dust!!!’ I put on my white gloves and wipe surfaces with feather dusters, kittens and damp rags made of old tights.

I stand back to admire my work. ‘Wait!’ I cried, ‘something terrible has happened!’

I haven’t become my mother.

I have become the polar opposite to my mother. I have become Anthea Turner.