My name is Carla, I have two children who have just turned 18, I am a geriatric doctor, I have an old dog, I volunteer twice a week in a center that welcomes young people with mental problems, one evening every fortnight I go out for dinner with my friends from I always have no help with the housework at home. Oh and I’m also married. In fact, my husband recently decided that my mother-in-law will come to live with us. And suddenly my life seems like a consolation prize.
***
Dear Carla, it makes me smile a little and it makes me tender. It’s clear that she has a talent for dedicating herself to others: geriatrician, two children, dog, volunteering, domestic duties… I bet that even when she goes out with her friends it ends up like this: she takes their problems on herself and makes herself available. It’s a beautiful thing. For the atria. And it is a vortex at the center of which we often find ourselves alone without knowing how to get out. I don’t know anything else about her story but perhaps, somewhere, at some time, for who knows what reason the horrible sense of guilt crept into her. When guilt infects us, we begin to spread it across every relationship. Getting rid of it is impossible. Even if what those who give everything to others forget is that they then have nothing left. Not even to give. I know she won’t refuse to welcome her mother-in-law into her home and I can only compliment her on that.
She volunteers and then kicks out her husband’s mom?! It can’t be. But it also cannot be that there is nothing left for her. Go to dinner with your friends every week. And expect to let off steam like the others. And get help around the house, since soon there will be many of you…