Cutting the Cord: November 9

After weeks of struggling through late-night dinners with the Jiyanes, we finally decided to inform Ma that we would like to start cooking and eating dinner on our own. This was a conversation that we had been dreading and putting off for weeks; especially since Ma’s psychic powers seemed to have clued her into our decision. At every dinner she continually commented about “how nice it was to eat together” and how “we have to eat together always!” It was hard enough to inform the family a few weeks back that we would be preparing breakfast and lunch on our own, due to food preferences and scheduling difficulties.

There is no question that we love our host family and spending time with them, but eating between 8 pm and 9 pm every night was wreaking havoc on our systems. After a 5:30 am wake up call in order to exercise, we would literally be falling asleep in our dinners and groaning at having to crawl into bed with full stomachs. We spent weeks weighing the pros and cons, but finally decided that our health comes first and we would make an extra effort to spend time with the family during the daylight hours. We knew that the conversation would be very hard on Ma so to our embarrassment, we put it off until the last possible moment.

That moment happened to occur when we were entering Shop Rite together in order to do our monthly shopping. Joe decided to go solo while Kelli grabbed a cart and checked our bags. (As a side note: we were very pleased to find reusable grocery bags and enjoy using them even more than in the states, especially since there aren’t any recycling programs here.) Without reliving the whole horrible experience, we’ll summarize by saying that it involved tears, long awkward silences and the feeling that we were ripping Ma’s heart out and stomping on it. After 10 minutes of explaining and consoling, the conversation finally concluded with a compromise: family dinners one to two nights a week.

We are happy to report that the awkwardness paid off and we are now experimenting with our stove and hitting the pillows before 9pm every night. Every now and then we miss the companionship of family dining, but make a point to visit with the family almost every day.