You experienced that history of feeling someone walks all over you? I do. Hello, I am Diana and three months of my life as a servant was spent at my home, while I was being ignored, as one of the back stores, by my adult stepdaughter Kayla. She would throw rubbish where she liked, treat me as if I were created in her own image as her servant and supposed that I could put up with everything the more so when her mother was in the field.
She was mistaken.
I had been married to my husband Tom and had a nice life within 10 years. Our house at Redwood Lane was a small house of laughter, crossword puzzles and Sunday pancake. Rick, my son in my first marriage, was doing well in college. And what about that 22 year-old daughter Tom, Kayla? You see, she sort of stood on the fringe, and was not so much interested in me. Not cruel. Just distant.
I made an effort to do everything. Birthday cards. Girls night out calls. Soft talks about her future. She felt that nothing touched her. But when she phoned Tom one rainy evening, and weeping and begging to be allowed to come home, and to stay just a little while, I opened my arms. Naturally she might remain. Family, as it were.
She had come like a hurricane; suitcases under her arm, and shopping bags in her hand, had only nodded a perfunctory salutation to me, had rushed in and taken possession of the guest-room, which I had just so nicely got ready. In a few days, red flags resurfaced: rusty cereal bowls, scattered makeup wipes, vacant water bottles, capable of multiplying into a rabbitry in just a few days.
“Would you sort these out to recycling, sweetie?” I would enquire in a soft manner.
Yep, whatever, she would say and she would not get anywhere.
She left an ever increasing trail of mess. Couch cushion banana peels. Amazon boxes are piled upon the doorways. Food wrapping littered the place as confetti. My sanctuary of a home was becoming a land fill.
Tom said, give her time. She is only adjusting.
But months dragged on into weeks. And one Sunday morning the strain was on. Having spent a couple of hours cleaning the living room thoroughly when Tom was attending to golf, I walked out to the garden to harvest some tomatoes. When I came back several minutes later, it was chaos: take out orders, soda cans rolled about the floor and orange Cheeto dust tracked into my cream-colored rug.
There was Kayla, scrolling her phone as nothing was wrong. “Diana! You wants some of those pancakes you made on my birthday? I’m starving.”
I was there, staring at the damage. I feel contracted in my chest. I clenched my hands.
You see what? My answer was composed. I believe I am without pancake mix. Order takeout.”
it was the same night I got a decision, when Tom slept with me and snored. Okay, so that was what Kayla thought of me, as the maid. But the maid was away.
The following day, I did not clean after her anymore. All the messy dishes remained. All the wrappers were kept. All the messes were left just where she threw them. In very few days, the coffee table became a dump site.
Kayla lost it on Tuesday.
“Diana?! Yeh you did not clean here!”
I peeped round a corner. Its not my dishes.
She blinked. But… you always do it.
“Do I? I do not remember I said that.”
On Thursday, I went to the next level. All of her trash I bagged, labeled, and color coded to match her trash cans, and slid into her room. Thought you would like them back! I labelled each note.
She became indignant. Still I was not rude.
The coup de grace was the following week. I put her lunch box in her own trash, laid out in an orderly row, like a disfigured bento box: the blighted apple core, the give-up chip bag, even the sponged-out makeup незаô maxibe balwart bacetser wipe.
By lunchtime I could feel my phone vibrating with angry text messages: “WHAT THE HELL DIANA???!” “Everyone at work thinks I am nuts!”
I answered, quite calmly: You would like leftovers. Good day!
Kayla returned home very quiet that night. She looked over the now clean living-room.
Diana! she said in a low voice. The living room is in very good condition.
I smiled. “Thank you.”
She hesitated. I tidied up, upstairs as well.
That was kind of Kayla.
In the morning all the dishes were washed. Clothes were ironed. Garbage cans were put out.And still, before the time to go to work, she stopped at the door. “Diana? If yer… ever want pancakes in future can you sweet talk me just once?”
I smiled. That is all that I wanted.
It is already two months since the Great Lunchbox Incident of Redwood Lane. We are not best buds (we are not even best friends that would braid each other) but something much more important grew blossom: respect towards each other.
Pancakes are even made by us together last Sunday. She took four and she smiled.
What changed parent Tom asked. What a charm hast thou cast! he whimpered.
I replied, nothing by a spell. And there are times that they have to see the mess that they are creating to only know how to clean things up.
The hard love is necessary towards some lessons. And sometimes, the rest of us who have just quietly soldiered through all these years suddenly get our voice back.
At the end of the day, share this story in case it resonated with you. It could always be somebody who has to be reminded: patience is a gift and respect earned.