Becoming Caloria

 

In life, we often do not realize the exact moment or day when something significant occurs. A shift, a changing of the guard, when we go from child to adult, teen to responsible grown-up. Or  the day we "become" our parent.  I feel so fortunate that I am able to pinpoint this moment, this day precisely.  It was today!  July 6, 2022.  I turned into my mom!  

This has been no small feat.  I have ALWAYS shared far more traits with my dad, John.  His tendency toward playing the devil's advocate, his love of visiting friends unannounced, his facial expressions when concentrating on something, his disdain for exercise, his willingness to hop in the car and drive to wherever someone needs to be picked up or dropped off and his emotional responses to marching bands, a good song, movie, and peoples avid participation in anything they enjoy.  I have, however, never been a whole lot like my mom, despite wishing  I could be.

In recent years, due to age and a "busy" mind, I have taken to making lists. This is something I learned from my mom.  She always had lists and even saved them for years.  I mean YEARS!   I have Thanksgiving prep lists from the 80s in a folder upstairs, along with the menu and food layout from my high school graduation party in 1983!  She is an organized saver of documents as well, something I am finding I have done partially, but not quite as well.  I'm a work in progress in this area.   In these ways, I have become a little like my mom I guess, but they also seem like more widespread practices, at least I see a lot of "organized influencers" boasting about the necessity of lists and documenting things so that my life can be well ordered and peaceful.  Jury is still out on all of that....I digress. 

For as long as I can remember, my mom  (and dad) were planners and organizers.  They were thrifty as well, in a way many people these days are not. That trait may be coming back into fashion given the current economic state of our world, honestly.  My mom scoured the grocery ads for sales and stocked up her pantry with key items she used throughout the year.  She even stocked what we used and by  "we" I mean me and my family because for most of my adult life we have lived relatively close to my parents.  I tell this story pretty often, but I do not remember buying toilet paper, peanut butter, or syrup for most of my adult life, until early 2019 when my dad's health began to decline and shopping all the sales became far less a priority to being his loving and attentive caregiver for my mom.  I was 54 years old!  My sister always said I would have a rude awakening when I had to add toilet paper to my budget with all of my kids still home!  I feel like I dodged that,  as 2019 was the year I was supposed to be living in an empty nest!  Somewhat unrelated, but also curious, until that same year, I never really bought my own underwear.  Six or seven new pairs of practical panties always came by way of a Christmas present from my mom.  Along with socks.   Again, I was FIFTY-FOUR YEARS OLD!  I should be horrified, but oddly, I'm not.  

While stocking the pantry, my mom also had a fully stocked freezer.  She had a couple of favorite meat markets/grocery stores and loaded up when things were on sale.  She would buy 40 lbs of ground beef or chicken breasts, then cart it all home to cook, package and freeze.  She also bought roasts and other cuts this way, but not in such great quantities.  One of my earliest blog posts here was related to a "Good Chuck Roast" she gave to me back in the early 2000s shortly after my divorce!  My sister and I have chuckled often about mom's packaging and labeling.  I'm not going to pretend I don't miss all of those wrapped and labeled packages from my parent's freezer.  It is weirdly something I miss a lot.  I find it interesting the things that spark memory and reflection for me.  I remember weeping (my dad's trait) when I used the last packaged item from my parent's freezer in mid-2020.  I don't recall what was in it but understood that it was the last time I would probably pull our freezer wrapped anything with my mom's handwriting.  Or freezer-wrapped anything at all.  

Which brings me to today.  Olivia, my third child, is having a baby soon.  In preparation for that, I decided to fix a few meals and things for her freezer.  So yesterday I got some chicken and ground turkey, in pretty large quantities, but not nearly 40 lbs!   Today I set about cooking up some taco meat, cut up chicken and cooked it, and packaged up chicken breasts to pull out for dinners later in the year.  It was then I remembered that I had kept what was left of my mom's freezer wrap from when we emptied their home in early 2020.  It was at that very moment, I crossed the threshold from being fully "me" to becoming a morphed version of me/my mom!  Carolyn and Gloria.  Caloria I will call this new version of me.  

I cooked, weighed, measured, wrapped, and labeled ground turkey and chicken for my own offspring.  I even dated the packages!  While I was in the process of doing it all, I didn't really even think about how weird this was (for me to do, not in general) It just seemed natural.  A natural progression.  A right of passage if you will.  I can't wait to tell my mom all about the process.  She will probably laugh, and think, but not say, it's about time!  You are 57 after all!  

Significant moments of transformation happen all the time.  We are transforming into better versions of ourselves every day if we are inclined to bend and stretch ourselves and not stay cemented in our experiences and practices.  Most of these significant moments happen without our realizing them.  But once in a while, we get a moment like I did today.   A moment when we realize we have come to embody some of the best parts of the most amazing and influential people we know and love.  Our Parents!