Like Family

Last night, my parents and brother came over for dinner. It's the first time I've truly hosted them for dinner. It was my chance to show off all my shiny things that seem so absurd when I wave them around at my friends; things like a fully set table with crystal wine glasses and appetizers in the living room (well, bags of chips and humus from the store and guacamole I'd made days before) and my general ability to hostess like a grown-up to sufficiently meet and exceed their expectations. Growing up, I watched my parents wig out when their families (my dad's side in particular) came to visit, cleaning the house top to bottom, never serving anything in its original container, making presentation prime. When my dad was growing up, they wore ties to dinner and had white linen table cloths every night and a maid. Both of his parents were doctors and his mother went to finishing school in Switzerland. Her father was a somewhat notorious lawyer in New York City who defended a Communist spy. My grandmother was herself a card-carrying communist for a time. Same grandmother who was a Freudian psychiatrist. At their formal nightly dinners, she and her medical degrees and her Smith College and her finishing school background would frequently stand up under five feet tall and pronounce "You ass!" in response to my grandfather. She could cuss like a sailor and would, but over lobster bisque served in silver tureen.

So never mind the mess in my office or in my head or everything else. If I can be a good hostess, if I can prove whatever it is I think I need to prove to my parents and to myself, then I am officially a successful human being, deserving of their love and praise, deserving of their financial assistance, deserving of my share of the oxygen on this planet and the space I occupy and everything else.