This is not my home

I've been feeling sorry for myself lately.

My parents are moving to the U.S. soon and while I can't wait to have them close by again, I can't help but think about all the things that I will miss about being able to go home, to Budapest.

I will not miss the expensive plane tickets and the fact that we only see each other once a year. But I will miss the excitement of planning to go home, the nervous wait for our luggage at the Budapest airport, the rush of seeing Mom, Dad, and Grandma waiting in the crowds. I will miss the cramped ride home in my parents' Skoda - my Mom playing with my ear - and I will miss seeing how much things have changed on the streets of Budapest and how things have stayed the same.

I will miss our old, cold, crumbling apartment building. I will miss going into my childhood room - the smell of the curtains that my Dad washed the day before, blowing in the wind and the sound of the trolley cars on the street below. I will miss feeling so big in a room that used to seem much larger when I was little. I will miss my Dad making a celebratory batch of Wiener schnitzel and my Grandma's hands uncovering a plate of apple pie. I will miss the fact that we barely fit into our kitchen and that I have to sit on the little red stool, shoved between my Dad and brother.

In the larger scheme of life, all of this seems petty of course. I know that. But as I am getting ready to make great, new memories with my parents here, in Maine, I can't help but finally grieve for what I've left behind. Even though I left Budapest more than 12 years ago now, this is the first time that I realize the magnitude of that step. And it sucks.

When I tell Drew that I want to go home, he always says "but this is your home," meaning our little apartment where we've made our nest for the past four years.

But he is wrong.

It's a house, it's a life, it might even be happiness. But this is not my home.

My inheritance

There is an ongoing joke in my family about what my brother and I have inherited from our parents – all the “bad” stuff. I got my Mom’s big, crooked nose and big belly and butt, and my Dad’s thin hair. My brother also got the thin hair – along with thinning hair – and some of the indecisiveness that is prevalent in my family. Although he takes it to whole new levels – but that is another story.

My parents often say that when they die, we will not inherit a house, or cash, or valuable antiques. So we should appreciate the nose and the belly and the hair.

Growing up, I was not grateful for this sort of inheritance – I wanted a graceful, small nose, a slender figure and lush hair. I had a boyfriend who would tell me that I could never be his wife if I ended up looking like my Mom in my old age.

He need not worry about that.

What I worried about as a teenager was becoming like my Mom on the inside – she was strict and no-nonsense and she had a weird talent of knowing exactly what I was thinking and doing at all times. By the time I came home from school, she already knew that I bombed on my history exam. It was all very uncool.

But of course, life has its funny ways, and I find myself becoming more and more like my parents. I cry during commercials, I tell Drew to put his hat and gloves on when it’s cold outside, and I always cook way too much food. I can only imagine what else I will say and do when I have kids that will make me stop in my tracks and realize that I am just like my Mom.

The nose, the butt, and the belly are still in place but I have a friendlier relationship with them these days. Looking at some old family photos recently, I noticed a picture of my great-grandmother as a young woman wearing a fabulous hat, and she had the exact same profile as mine and my Mom’s. My Mom’s soft hug makes me hopeful that one day my curves will provide the same comfort.

I am more aware of other resemblances too and I treasure them more than I used to. I have my Dad’s warm, melancholic eyes, his sarcastic humor, his long fingers – so does my brother. I also inherited my Mom’s go–getter attitude and strength and ability to do 20 things at the same time. I also have her impatience and my Dad’s ability to laugh at the same impatience.

I can just look in the mirror and know exactly where I came from. In the end, that’s a pretty good inheritance.

Dear Diary: What was I Thinking?

This is one of the classic stories from my childhood: I got a new bike when I was about eight or nine years old. The neighboring apartment building had a large yard with some grass and trees and a parking lot where all of the neighboring children and their parents would gather in the afternoons for play dates and gossip.

My friend, Kata, really wanted my new bike. So she would say to me: “Hey, Zsofi, come here! I want to show you something!” Curiosity got the best of me and I got off my bike, walked over to her and she ran to my bike, got on, and rode away happily.

I don’t quite remember this incident, but apparently she did this to me about 10 times that afternoon and I fell for it every single time. My mom watched from the bench, along with Kata’s mom, hoping that I would catch on.

I didn’t.

How many times have I heard this story? Way too many, in my opinion. Kata is perfectly nice and we are still friends and really, she did what every other kid would have done. But the story still embarrasses me today, every time I hear it.

In fact, a lot of things from my childhood and young adulthood still embarrass me for some reason.

A couple of evenings ago I had a glass of wine and decided to read some old diaries. I shouldn’t have… The diaries were from my junior and senior years in high school and from college and after reading them I couldn’t look in the mirror for a couple of days from sheer horror and embarrassment.

As a teenager, I was SO stupid. I was so gullible and naïve and emotional, not to mention irrational and needy and clingy. What was I thinking? It’s not that I made too many bad choices; it’s that everything was such a BIG DEAL. A wink from a boy sent me over the edge, or an innocent word from my parents enraged me for days. Where did my cool go? Did I have any dignity at all? Was I all hormones and no reason? What was I doing kissing a 28-year-old French saxophone player? And even worse, how did I ever think that he would fall in love with a 17-year-old high school girl?

My current self was – and still is – mortified. I had to stop reading after a while and lock the diaries away for at least another ten years. Hopefully by then all of the pink ink I used will have faded into eternity.

When Drew got home that evening, I told him about my findings and he reassured me that no, I wasn’t a hormone-crazed, irrational, emotional wreck anymore. He also wanted to read the diaries, but I’d rather swallow the keys before I let that happen!

I am not sure why I was so embarrassed about my younger self. After all, everyone goes through awkward years, bad boyfriends, bad fashion choices, and arguments with parents and siblings.

I guess part of me was horrified for putting my poor parents through this. It must have been no picnic for them to live with me and to keep me out of trouble. And another part of me was – is – afraid that there is still a side of me that can easily revert to a crazy 17-year-old or 22-year-old at any moment. And I am not so sure that I wouldn’t still fall for Kata’s trick at let her ride off with my bike.

I haven’t kept a diary since college. It seems that once all of the drama of my life was over and I had to get up at 5 a.m. for my job at a newspaper – no more parties, no more international romance – life got a little too mundane for words. I do remember that as I was writing my diaries, I kept thinking how great it will be to read them a couple of years down the road and relive all of my misadventures.

Instead, the diaries turned into a cautionary tale and they made me realize a couple of things:
1. It is a wonder any of us survive our teenage years.
2. It is a wonder our parents still talk to us after our teenage years.
3. My future daughter better watch out because she will not be able to get away with anything. I’ve literally been there, done that, and I have the diary to prove it!

You are what your spouse eats

We are all familiar with “Freshman 15” — those extra couple of pounds new college students pile on during the first year of school. But a lesser-known phenomenon is the “Newlywed 20” — or 30, or 40 — that pile on during the first couple of years of newlywed bliss.

I admit that I don’t have the healthiest eating habits. I grew up on chicken paprika and Wiener schnitzel and lots of other pork parts with potatoes or gnocchi. At home, my parents cooked with lard, or if they wanted to be “healthier” they used goose fat. While delicious, it was certainly not the American Heart Association approved diet.

But when Drew bought Steak-Ums for one of our first dinners together as a married couple, I knew that we were going to have to do some negotiating about what goes into the fridge and into our bellies. Thankfully, we have similar tastes and no food allergies, so we didn’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out what the other can or can’t eat. I try to avoid hard-boiled eggs and tuna because Drew doesn’t like them, and Drew tries to dial down the hot pepper flakes in his cooking, but other than that, everything else is fair game.

Over the years, I branched out in my cooking away from Hungarian cuisine and into seafood and Italian dishes. Drew is staying away from the processed meat-like products and experiments with more fresh and low-fat ingredients. His staple seasoning is still beer — but once you try his burgers steamed in beer, you’ll understand that that’s not a bad thing.

Unfortunately, all this negotiating paid off a little too well, because five years later we are still carrying around that “newlywed 20.” We love to cook and eat together every night. We like to nosh on some hummus and pita while there is a nice pork chop in the skillet with some couscous in the pot. We love to sit and talk for hours at the dinner table over a glass of wine. We enjoy a $200 meal as much as we do burgers from Rapid Ray’s in Saco.

While we don’t want to weigh 600 pounds each on our 10th anniversary, I don’t think we’d ever want to change the basics of the way we enjoy food. Everything just tastes so much better when we eat it together. Food is something we bond over, just another part of our lives that we want to share. Cooking and eating involves all of our senses — the sizzle of the grill, the smell of the wine hitting the pan, the smooth skin of a fresh mushroom, the crisp crunch of an asparagus on the tongue — and watching Drew cook is incredibly endearing and fun. He is a very messy cook with lots of spices flying and sauces splashing around the kitchen, but I never mind the clean-up.
Sitting down together every night opens up lots of opportunities to talk and share things that happened during the day, to talk about things that might be uncomfortable under other circumstances, or just have a spirited discussion about politics or religion. Sometimes I think some of our dinner guests might think that we are crazy — but we really do debate and argue serious issues over dinner. It helps our digestion.

Realizing that getting so much pleasure out of eating might cause problems down the road, we’ve made some changes in our habits; we walk more, instituted salad days, banned canned or boxed meats a long time ago, and, weather permitting, we walk a few miles to Rapid Ray’s when the craving hits.

I don’t know if we’ll ever lose our “newlywed 20.” But I hope that we will never lose our need to spend our evenings together over a plate of good — and somewhat healthy — food.

And of course, dessert.

Make up, don't break up

Everyone is breaking up.

The past couple of weeks I’ve heard about at least three couples who broke up in my small circle of friends and acquaintances. Some were married, some not, but the results ended up to be the same.

What’s going on? Is there something in the air or the water?

Hearing about the demise of these relationships made me worry. These couples seemed to be so solid, so happy, so normal. Did they know it was coming? Does anyone ever know that it’s coming?

It is so hard to see into relationships. Couples that seem to be well-matched on the surface could be struggling to stay together, and some odd couples that I would never put together are thriving. I often wonder what people think of me and Drew. Do we make sense to the outside observer? Someone who doesn’t know Drew might think that he’s large and loud and a little arrogant. I’m flighty and moody and somewhat neurotic. I know that we have a great time together, but I doubt that we make sense to those around us.

Hearing of all these breakups, my first instinct is to feel superior: this would never happen to us. But then I start to worry — if it happened to these other, normal couples, could it happen to us? Is this a monster waiting under our bed?

So I turned to Drew with the questions: “Are we OK? Is there anything we need to talk about?” Maybe our calm, quiet relationship is about to implode and I just don’t know it. Maybe the next time I argue with him about the temperature of the dryer will be the last drop in his glass and that will be the end of it.

I’d like to think that we know each other better, that if we had really serious problems we would talk to each other and we wouldn’t let things get out of hand. But these breakups also reminded me that the trust and respect we built over the years are fragile and we can’t take them for granted. We can’t assume that just because we’re married our spouse is going to put up with hurtful comments or annoying habits forever and that the cup will never overflow. Even though we’re settled down in a stable relationship, we have to keep changing and growing to maintain and strengthen our bond.

We reassured each other that neither of us has any unspoken hurts or issues that can bubble to the surface unexpectedly. We usually nip things in the bud before they become big problems or big resentments. Yes, he finds it annoying that I think that my clothes can shrink even after 200 washes, and yes I think it’s ridiculous that all of our magnets have to align perfectly on our fridge, but these are surely no reasons for divorce.

“We are doing just fine,” Drew told me last night after we spent the evening listening to one of his friends who is on the receiving end of a break-up.

And that’s all I need to know.