The Laundry Room

Moving my mom upstairs to the Master Bedroom has been great for her, my husband and me. 

There's always been one problem with the laundry room, it's attached to the bedroom that's downstairs. 

When my mom was living in the room, I had her do all of my laundry, she loved doing the laundry.  My mom likes my mother in law so she never had a problem having her use the machines.

My personal problem has been a lack of privacy for my husband and me.  When we had the Master Bedroom upstairs, I would always have to walk by my mother in law when I wanted to go and do something.  It felt like I was being watched all the time.  It was oppressive and contributed to my unhappiness with where I was living. 

I cried a lot during my first year and a half of marriage.  Not because I was sad that I married my husband, it is the opposite, I am psyched to have found my best friend and married him. 

It would be so nice to do things that newly weds get to do together, but like my husband says, "We started our marriage backward, it will only get better from here."

I love his optimism.  I believe him.

A new life began for us on April 11, 2008.  Our lives had changed forever.  Heck, I changed my name, what did I expect? 

When I moved in we brought along my brother Ed's combo washer drier.  An awesome machine that was made in Italy.  My mom, she loves that machine and insisted on having it installed.  It was sort of a way for her to hold on to a part of my brother.  He passed away in a white water rafting accident back in June 2001.  Today is his birthday, he would have been 53.

Knowing the importance of the washer, I wanted to have it installed in the garage.  I had forseen trouble with the laundry.

But, when I raised the idea when we first moved in the shit hit the fan.  My mother-in-law still believed that she was the woman of the house and my mom and I were the intruders.  She was pretty bossy.  Part of the problem was asking her what she thought, something my husband did as a courtesy of some kind.  All it did was empower her in to believing that she was the queen of the roost. 

How did this happen?

Part of the challenge of getting married for the first time at 48 is that I have proven to myself that I can take care of myself.  I bought a house.  Had great jobs.  Fine cloths.  Travelled.  Drank really fine wine.  I loved the life that I had created for myself.  The house that I left behind was my bit of Heaven on Earth.  It was that for both my mom and me.

My gardens, well they were spectacular.  The sun, the paths out and around the pond, the silence.  It was great.  Even the damn woodchucks amused me at times, like when they had the balls to stand up on their hind legs and screech at me.  Great memories were born in that house, it was a house where my family visited often.  I miss that the most now, the family visits.

So, today my mother in law wants to do her laundry.  She needs to go through our personal space, our sanctuary, our only space in the house where only we spend time.  This is really important to me, my private space with my husband.  In my house, I had lots of little places to retreat, here I have one place and today it runs the risk of being taken away.

All night I was awake, thinking about the laundry room.  My hot flashes were intense.  I know it was because I am stressing over the thought of losing my sanctuary.  Rehearsing in my mind what I will say to my mother in law, how I'll say it, when I'll say it. 

I worked myself up into a frenzy.

My solution is that I'll do her laundry.  No big deal for me.  Like my mom, I love doing laundry.  I love seeing how clean I can get the cloths, if I can get stains out of fabric and if I can get the cloths out of the drier before the cloths wrinkle.

I purposely don't allow my mom to do the laundry anymore.  I do her laundry.  I need to retain our private place, our sanctuary where only our energy resides.  The place where we know it's just for us.  Is this asking too much?

I'm still not 100% sure how I'll approach the subject of the laundry room.  I will talk to her from my heart so that she understands why it's important for me and my husband to have our own space in the house where no one else goes. 

After all, she does have the full use of 3 rooms upstairs and has her stuff in.  She has pretty much all the closet space upstairs so I can't leave my extra rolls of paper towels in them.  I need to leave my supplies in the garage.  A royal pain in the ass when I'm cooking and use the last paper towel. 

I know that little things can build up and it's always best to face them head on before a blow out.  I learned this lesson.  Most recently with my sister.  Oh, I wish I talked to her years ago about the little things.  I'm sure we could have worked everything out so that we'd still be communicating today.  One day when my life settles down from all my care giving, I'll call her and see if we can make amends. 

Now, I find myself defending my personal space, my sanctuary, the Laundry Room.

++++++++++++++ Personal Space Problem - Solved! +++++++++++++

All morning I felt like I was going to pewk.  Just thinking about talking to my mother in law about the laundry was turning my stomach. 

Confronting my fear head on, I approach her and say, "You know how you are going to do your laundry today?  I've been up all night worried about it."

She turned whiter than she already is normally. 

I continued...

"I love you.  I want to do your laundry.  The reason is because it's the only place in the house where Brian and I have our privacy, it's our place.  It's the reason that when we first moved in that I wanted to set up the laundry in the garage, a common area for everyone." 

She totally understood.  She didn't want to give me more work by having me do her laundry.  Now she realizes that it's not more work, it's something that I enjoy doing, laundry. 

I'm relieved.  The nausea is gone.

Her first batch of laundry is in the machine.

Now my new problem to solve is what do I make the girls and me for lunch?