Home Alone - for the first time

I was depressed for half an hour when the door closed in front of me. My mother left for Hong Kong today, and Antoine was heading to Chicago for almost three days. For the very first time, Ming Ming and I are left alone in Charlottesville. I am not exactly scared; after all, I have spent quite some time living alone in my life, but I am not very assured.

After sitting across from Ming Ming for half an hour feeling a vague sense of loss, I decided to clean up the dinning table and wash the dishes. And it was like magic. Housework is great in this kind of situation (no great when it is a tedious, never-ending battle against dust, dirt, and chaos); it restores a sense of joy and control to everyday life. My depression was gone immediately and I became my own woman again. Only by starting doing some housework do I realize that I had relinquished a lot of control in the last few months to my mother. I was happy to. It is total bliss when you don’t have to worry about what to cook, when to do the laundry, how to arrange the use of space, etc. It seems that whenever mother is around, I automatically become the lazy daughter who does not want to have anything to do with housework (the only exception is that I insist to clean Ming Ming’s soiled clothes myself). This morning I welcome back the woman who pays attention to details, grows flower in every corner, and loves domestic chore (sometimes), and who is a feminist. (No, it is not contradictory at all.)

Even though it is only the two of us, we manage to have a lot of fun. As I was more focused at being the sole care-giver, I become more inventive at coming up with new things to do with her. We went out for walks, played and exercised in bed, on the yoga mat, on the sofa, in the exersaucer, in the swing, in the bambo sitter, etc… Ming Ming laughed a lot. But it was a bit intense on me. Whenever I was cooking, cleaning up, doing laundry, I was split between what I was doing and trying to entertain Ming Ming at the same time. Whenever I could not see/hear her, her cry rang in my head even though she was not crying at all (tonight I rushed out of my shower only to find her still sound asleep). I live in a constant dread that she might fall or hurt herself in some ways. Yet, it turned out fine. Ming Ming was patient and easy to please (she laughs at all the stupid sounds and gestures that I made, and I surprised myself on how capable I was in making them). Today is the first day that I met the challenge of being a stay-home mum, hope that tomorrow I can meet the other challenge of being a stay-home dissertation-writer as well.