How things have changed.

My, how the tides have changed...

I am the youngest child of three, and when I was little, watching TV with my siblings, my brother always had control over the remote.
In about year two of marriage, my husband started automatically giving me the remote at the beginning of a movie or show. We're in year six of marriage now, and I still marvel at the privilege and power of completely and solely controlling the volume of a TV show. Sometimes, I still secretly congratulate myself on this honor.

In my family growing up, I was always chided for being so "sensitive" and not being able to take a joke. I cried often and hated it when they tried to cheer me up by making me laugh. In their sincere love for me and concern for my apparent lack of resilience, I was frequently told to just "get over it."
In my husband's family, I am the strongest-willed, most blunt person of the group. This has completely changed my perspective on the family environment people grow up in and how much they can vary. I also marvel at how much this can change the person you become by default, as well as the person you decide to be, on purpose, when you leave home.

In my family of origin, I am famously terrible about losing my belongings, and about not looking for them thoroughly enough. My mother and brother were particularly good at keeping track of their things, and at knowing where my items would be too. The summer after I graduated college, my brother and I lived together in a three story house. I lost my sunglasses so often that he cut a deal with me that if he found them, I'd have to pay him to get them back.
In my current household, where I am a wife and a toddler-mother, I am the one who knows where everyone's misplaced belongings might be. And I know whether the fridge still contains barbecue sauce or not. I am so good at this that my husband realized it was more convenient to simply ask me where items were, instead of looking for them himself. When I tell him to look first anyway, he does and insists they're gone. After getting him to swear it, I then go and find them in that exact place. I mean, c'mon, how did this happen?


But mostly, all I can say to myself lately is,
My, how the tides have changed.

--Ellen H.