Me, My MIL, and Alex Trebek

Living with another woman, especially when that woman is your mother-in-law, can be stressful.  It doesn't matter how well you get along or how easy-going either of you are - you are different, and that makes for occasional tension.  

There are different ways to cook, different ways to clean.  You might have vastly different schedules or house rules.  And sometimes you'll want to go for a 10 mile walk in order to cool down, or you might scream obscenities into your pillow on a day when the walls feel particularly close.

But sometimes, yes, sometimes, you remember that you really do like the person you're living with, and that it's not all bad.

My MIL and I have fallen into a routine of watching Jeopardy while we eat dinner.  One night when there was nothing on, we just settled for the geriatric game show.  We figured since it was Teen Week we might have a shot at knowing some of the answers.

Well, on that first night it didn't matter that the questions were "dumbed down" for the younger crowd - we still knew almost none of the correct responses.  But we came back again and again because for some reason we enjoyed sitting together and having our stupidity handed to us to enjoy with our dinner.

So now, every night when we settle in with my cooking, (which is not my MIL's usual fare nor preference), we sit in silence until the answer to one of the questions is "SPAM" or "Catwoman" or something equally inane, and then we shout out our responses as fast as we can and gloat in our superior intellect.  We smile across the room at each other and crack open another soda.

And then each of us spends the evening attempting to give the other her space.

But if I watch for those moments of connection, all the differences seem to shrink a bit, and we both survive another day.