It’s Not the Mixer
There are so many ways we fail to come to terms with growing old. For instance:
I got an email from KitchenAid today, offering 10% off on a mixer. I had one once, in the ‘70s — a big, mustard yellow model my parents gave me for my birthday.
I loved it. I used it in making fresh pasta, coffeecakes and Julia Child-worthy egg whites. I kept it on the counter, not for convenience, but for all the world to see!
It was a perfect gift, perfectly representing me trying to be a perfect housewife.
So, no surprise that 60 years later I regretted giving it away before moving out of state into smaller digs.
“Do you think that woman would part with it?” I asked David plaintively in a fit of giver’s regret. “I mean, I bet she’s never even used it.”
David said I’d never know unless I asked, but along the lines of giving with the right hand and taking back with the left, I couldn’t bring myself to call. What would I say?
“Hey, remember that KitchenAid mixer I gave you. . .?” Well, uh, I was wondering, seeing as how it holds so many memories for me, and you’re not using it. . . well, um, do you think I could have it back? I mean, uh,
I could give it back to you again another time?”
Then I realized there was more to it than just getting back my parents’ gift, or my memories.
I wanted back 30-year-old me who first got it; the 40-year-old mom who could work tirelessly for hours in the kitchen; even the 50-year-old who lugged it from house to house after her children had grown and gone and she had changed husbands(and their favorite recipes) several times.
I wanted back the KitchenAid that had whipped up so much more than recipes. I wanted back what I had then — dreams and plans for the future, and the vibrant, physically strong me. I wanted back the past, when there were still decades to be lived.
“If you don’t want to call her, why don’t you just get yourself a new one?,” David asked.
“Because a new KitchenAid won’t make me that young woman again,” I could have replied.
Then, while browsing the KitchenAid website, I saw an incredible ruby red mixer. It might have been a Corvette it was so gleaming and beckoning, and so — perfect. That is, perfect for the life I am living now. Not the one with all those Thanksgivings and coffee cakes and egg whites of my past, but perfect for who I am today.
And they offered interest-free payments.
Author’s Note: Reading this again I cried real tears. “It’s okay to grieve,” I told myself. It’s okay to cry, even for a KitchenAid mixer. It’s good to get all that emotion out. Don’t hold it in. Let it go.” And when I was done with my pep talk, I went into my kitchen and petted my new red KitchenAid. I petted it and patted it and almost bowed to it. “Thank you, KitchenAid,” I said to it. “Thank you.”