A COFFEE CUP
“Let the rain stop, I’m going out,” Neda said to her mother.
Ahmet in that house, my mother in this one… Poor girl, last night while her father was insulting her so harshly, she just sat in the corner and kept filing her nails. While filing her nails, she was probably trying to scrape away a family like us from her life, my poor child…
Neda blamed herself for every bit of disrespect from her daughter. “Of course, I couldn’t choose a proper father for her, it’s my fault…” Naturally, her friends’ mothers stayed at home all day and cared for their children. She, on the other hand, was out from morning to evening. Her child was growing up on her own; she had every right to be irritable… Or, “Yesterday the child wanted meatballs, but I was so tired I fed her leftovers from the day before. Of course she’d be upset…”
Everyone around her was right, and Neda was always wrong. Therefore, she was always tired—but she didn’t even realize how tired she really was…
Her relationship with Ahmet had started off so well; they both worked. In her eyes, Ahmet was a very understanding husband. He left home earlier, and if there was no meal prepared, he would hang out with his friends so she wouldn’t feel uneasy. Weekends were the same. “Do the cleaning comfortably, I won’t get in the way,” he would say, eat breakfast, and leave the house. He would even say, “Don’t cook today, I’ll be home late,” giving her time to rest.
Things changed a bit once the baby arrived. I couldn’t give my husband enough attention. A baby on one side, nonstop calls from the office on the other. My mother moved in saying, “You don’t know how to take care of a child,” and may God bless her, at least she relieved me of the burden of thinking about what to cook.
Childbirth, a new baby at home, a new person—and living with my mother again… At first it all created trauma and chaos, but then we got used to that, too.
Just as my mother constantly made decisions for us while raising us, she began doing the same to my daughter and my husband. They call this type of person a “dominant character.” I learned this at the age of forty. We thought my mother was just “authoritative,” but true authority is the skill of raising a person by standing firm. How many things we believe to be right are actually wrong, I wonder?..
My mother looked after Yeşim for a long time. So, naturally, the child developed traumas. A grandmother who constantly said “no” at home… So in the evenings I tried to make it up to her by giving her everything that might make her happy. But my child wasn’t happy… Her favorite meals, toys ordered from abroad before they even reached our country… No matter what I gave, she always wanted what she didn’t have.
“Ahhh why did all of this come to my mind now,” she said, shaking herself. She wiped away a tear and stood up. After another argument at home, she had come to her mother’s. Ahmet was no longer happy with anything she did and was constantly complaining. Just like their daughter, Yeşim. Even though they were on the verge of divorce, she hadn’t separated the households for the sake of the child.
Her mother kept grumbling from the other room. “She’s so grown up, yet I’m still the one who has to tell her what time she needs to leave for work…”
Workplace was actually her refuge. So every morning she hurried to get the family ready and rushed to her office. Her close friend there was Aleyna, her partner’s daughter. They shared the same room. And unlike her daughter, Aleyna didn’t snap at her; she spoke sweetly. “Neda, my dear sister, these thoughts have expired. We threw them away long ago—these things poison a person. Oh don’t tell me you’re trying to make poor Yeşim live like this too? We’re Generation Z, honey. We work with our brains, not our bodies. If work isn’t finished on time, no one dies. But if you live life in a way that drains all its joy, then you’re already dead…” she would say with a mischievous smile.
That morning too, like every morning, Aleyna strolled into the office despite being late. “Gooood moooorniiing.” Neda looked over her glasses and said, “Good morning.” Once she stepped into the office, she left whatever happened at home behind and concentrated on her work. “Ohhh babe, what’s wrong with you again? Okay then, not ‘good moooorning.’ May your morning be blessed, my queen.” She had managed to make her laugh again, this crazy child.
“What’s wrong, my dear? Something’s happened again, your face looks strange. Come on, let’s go have our morning coffee outside. And on the way, we’ll spoil ourselves and buy something nice. What do you say?”
“Sweetheart, stop looking for an excuse to slack off. You haven’t even sat at your desk yet—what do you mean outside? I’ve already turned on the coffee machine, take some and sit. I have a lot of work to do; I can’t go out right now.”
“Baaabyyy. We’re the bosses, remember? We work day and night anyway.” When she saw Neda looking at her over her glasses, she quickly corrected her tone with a huge smile. “I mean… okay. I may not be working as much as you do. But you already work for all of us, Nedoş. You finish our half-done tasks too. And you do them better and more carefully than we do. Now I’m going to my desk, but we are going out for lunch. And after lunch, I’m buying you a nice coffee. Shhhh, don’t you dare object.” she said, wiggling her hips exaggeratedly as she walked to her desk. She knew this would make her laugh.
But Neda knew that drinking coffee before a meal was better. Because —according to the last training she attended— “Any coffee you drink after a meal doesn’t turn into energy; it turns into fat.” If you drink it before eating, your body doesn’t register it as nourishment. “Therefore, it postpones hunger and makes it easier to burn your own body fat…” she wanted to say, but stopped herself. She whispered, “Once won’t hurt,” and went back to work. Once again, she had compromised her own preference to please someone else…
Everything starts with a single time…
The words written on her coffee cup felt like a slap to Neda. Truly, everything in her life that now felt difficult had begun with doing it one time. She had actually gotten used to not drinking coffee after meals for a while. But yesterday, because she couldn’t say no to her friend, the coffee she drank after lunch felt so good. And today too, the words printed on the new cup she had ordered couldn’t be a coincidence.
If you’ve done it once, it becomes easier to do it again. Whether it’s a mistake or the right thing… Where had she heard that? When a person is in the flow of producing, the more they do, the more they want to do. But when you say “I’m tired, let me sit a bit,” and slip into comfort, then you want that comfort to last forever.
So what is it you want for yourself?
Experiential Design Teaching is a knowledge community that produces strategies for designing our future based on past experiences.
The "Who is Who", "Mastery in Relationships" and "Success Psychology" Seminar Programs offer the needed methods for those who want to be happy and successful in life by solving their problems and achieving their goals.
"There is only one thing in life that can never be discovered; The better one..."
===
Yahya Hamurcu
0 Yorumlar