Sitting in a coffee shop, having a rare solo coffee on the way to meet friends, I have watched myself engage automatically-yet very deliberately -in a Classic Mammy Move. I cleaned the table. Myself. With my own wipes that I carry in my bag at all times.

Do we all get here eventually? I mean to that time when you are not just similar to your Mam, but you may actually be morphing into her?

My Mam is neat, tidy and orderly. She is calm and quiet. I don’t think I always have been.

In fact maybe we haven’t that much in common. One time I was aiming to be tidy. Craved order. Had no interest in calm and quiet. And yet…I see my house now. I am unsettled when it is unsettled.  I tidy. I clean. I obsess about order and routine. Calm and quiet?  These days I see this state as perfection and idyllic. If you can get it.

So to order.  I have been observing. Or more I have been assaulted by sniper like truth bullets when I least expect it as to why I am transitioning more and more into my own Mother. Here is an actual list of what has been happening.

Ordered you see.

1. Bearer of Tissues. I always have then in my bag now just like my Mam. I bulk buy. I am Official Cleaner of the Runny Nose. Like my Mam once was.
2. V- Necked Jumpers. We both have quite the collection. My mother has a tidier figure than I, but often I catch sight of us both in a mirror and see a uniform of various coloured jumpers with obligatory V neck and ordinary black trousers staring back at me.
3. Comfortable Sensible Shoes. I have recently been diagnosed with Plantar Fascitis. See Atlas, did you develop a dodgy heel too?to see when I first became aware of the issue. Upon diagnosis my Mother admitted to ‘having had a bit of that too once’ and I quickly had a mental flash in memory of having watched her hobbling in and out of cars in the past and realisation dawns. This is now me. It is hereditary. Dodgy heels due to baby bearing runs in the family. Now none of us can run at all. Who knew?

   

4. Talking on the Phone Everyday to- Mammy!  My mother spent at least an hour per day on the phone to her mother, my Granny. It drove Dad mad. What could they be on about? Sure they were only talking the day before?

   

   My Granny is now in her nineties. She is not able to do this any longer. I know know how wickedly tough this must be for my Mam. I know because I talk to my own Mam everyday. I do it because I NEED her. She helps me be a Mam myself. We talk about babies. How they are. How we are coping. What I need her to bring to me when she visits! Nannas immediately get a position as a Tesco personal shopper for their daughter as soon as the new baby is born.

5. Talking about how Shocking everything is. Now that I have children, everything on the news appalls me.  I am horrified by events and images. Horror stores involving children appear to pop up everywhere. Together my mother and I talk about how Shocking they all are.
6. Tea. I rarely drank tea for thirty four years. I had children. Now I need tea. Another thirty years and I imagine I will be on the ten a day like my Mam. A trip to Paris (24 hours in 2005) where Irish tea with cold milk was not to hand caused near hysteria to my mother at the time. It was much to my amusement then. I know see it could be in my future. I have inherited belief in the healing powers of tea as a proper Irish Mammy should. In fact, I had tea when I realised I was turning into Mam.

There is more evidence but maybe I am not ready to probe that bear yet.

My Mother is wonderful. I am not sorry to become like her. There are much worse people to morph into. I am changing into someone I love. I know that I am very lucky to have a living Mother  who lives nearby.

Still though. It is a bit of land when you realise it is happening. You are aging. Swiftly!

Anyone else experience this phenomenon via genes and their outing?