Mother Knows Best.

It´s a funny thing that happened when I came to Chile, and oddly enough, something I didn´t particularly notice until last weekend—more specifically, on Mother´s Day. (An unlikely foray into Chilean culture, but bear with me)

So, mothers. As of their most recent celebration, the one that birthed me was roughly 5,000 miles away and not picking up my calls, while the one assigned to me had just finished folding my clothes, (which coincidentally, she had also laundered earlier in the day.) I´m 24. The last time my mother folded anything for me was probably right after she wished me a happy 11th birthday. And by no means did I have a rough go of it as a child. When I decided to come to Chile, one of my cited justifications was how much of a ¨learning experience¨it would be, how chock full of life lessons, and how inevitably, time spent in this country would help me grow and mature as a person. So what exactly am I doing in a place where ¨Mommy¨ still cleans my room? Good question.

This isn´t the first time I´ve pondered such. About two months ago I was at a party and asked to borrow a sweatshirt from the host to counter the quick drop in temperature. Once he led me to his room, the appallment that would have otherwise formed in response to his immediate advances was quickly re-directed to his closet. Or more like, AT his closet and the blatancy with which it practically screamed, ¨I am color-coded according to his mother´s preferences!¨ Did he bat an eye? Cower in embarassment because I discovered his secret? Of course not. In an ironic twist of perspective, it was I who ended up making the sheepish apology—two of them actually: one for the host, for laughing (loudly) at how nice his crisply ironed shirts looked hanging in a row, and the second for my own Chilean mama, because I forgot to pick my shoes up off the floor before I went out and she had to move them in order to vacuum under my bed.

Like I said, I originally came to Santiago to wisen up and experience life outside of my comfort zone. Now I sleep in a twin bed with a patterned quilt and drink chocolate milk out of single-serving cardboard cartons. I point at things I don´t know how to pronounce and most of my comings and goings from my place of residence are met with joyous exclamations. If I do something correctly, my host parents laugh good-heartedly and assure me I´m well on my way. If I do something wrong, my host parents laugh good-heartedly and assure me I´ll do better next time. Who would have thought I´d end up with a sitcom-childhood at age 24? And now...Well, I don´t know. But maybe these next seven months spent aging in the Spanish equivalent of a Full House episode will produce a healthy adult, one who´s wise enough to never judge the unfamiliar, and more importantly, one who´s learned to laugh off the irony of it all.