Traverse City Record-Eagle

Marta Hepler Drahos

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April 19, 2010

Marta Hepler Drahos: Like being a kid

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

Here's the thing about living next door to your mother. Those quirky little habits you'd rather stayed private? They're not anymore.

"Were you making popcorn at 1:30 in the morning?" she asks, after a particularly late night during which the smell of burnt kernels wafted through the ductwork to her attached apartment. And, "Don't you think you should be doing something productive?" when, coming over to return a dish on a Saturday afternoon, she finds you still in your nightshirt cramming for your book club meeting.

The nightshirt itself -- an oversized jersey from your professor sister's university -- draws exasperated glances.

"I wish you'd at least put on some jeans," she says.

You can't watch movies all weekend or sleep in til noon or spend hours on the Internet without risking notice.

You can't sing at the top of your lungs, as you're wont to do, or have a mezzo forte argument with your husband. And where, before, you let the shrill doggie bark-offs go on a bit longer than they should, now you reach for the mini-squirt bottle after the second or third warning.

On the plus side, you have a built-in pet sitter whenever you decide to take off.

You can share lettuce and celery and other things that go limp and slimy in your crisper bin when you're only cooking for two. When you discover you're out of potatoes -- and onions and eggs -- midway through whipping up a frittata, you can send your husband across the hall to borrow some instead of to the neighborhood grocery -- or to your mother's old house five miles down the road.

You can let the house go, since there's no way you can scramble to clean it every time she comes over. Even the bedroom door, which has always remained closed to hide the piles of clothes you never seem to get around to hanging, can gape open to frame the joyful abandon within.

You can pop over for a chat or a meal or a favorite program, then leave when Nancy Grace(less) or the RFD Boys come on. And you don't have to call to say you're safe when you get home.

You sleep sounder knowing she's safe, even though the light from her window comes through yours when she reads through the night. In fact, it's a comfort, just like the few muffled sounds that penetrate through the shared wall.

It's all a bit like being a kid again, only with a lot more independence. And because your relationship is better now than it ever was then, it's like having instant access to both your mom and your best friend.

Oh, I know there may be times when one or the other of us will feel too close for comfort. But for now, I couldn't be happier.

Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.

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