I'm turning in to my mother ahhhhhhh

I'm turning in to my mother. I know I am. She turned in to her mother. Her mother turned in to hers. It's a generation thing and I can't stop it how ever much I try!

I love my mum very much, and we are great friends. We've always been close and I am terribly lucky to have her. It's the same with my dad. We are close, even if he tells me I sound like my mother sometimes. (Dunno what he means!) I also know not everyone feels that way about their parents, or are as close to their parents as I am. It's such a pity if you are not, because the enrichment and love that surrounds you is exactly what I am trying to replicate with my sons and their families. There is no better example to follow, for me at least.

I find it so weird to hear myself saying, and then doing, things exactly the same as my mum. It's like a deja vue moment when I catch this happening. There's the obvious things we do similar or the same, like the way we cook. I have slightly developed my own style as I am probably more adventurous than my mum was. In her younger days you had a set type of cookery book and you stuck to it. Mind you, my mum's cooking was considered exotic as she came from Germany in the late 1950s, and their style of meals were very different to the British. Think lots of sauces on vegetables and rich heavy stews and having meat and cheese for breakfast. All very different from the good old cooked breakfast, and the meat and two veg dishes, let alone fish and chips. You learn from your mum......and school if you are lucky and they teach cookery.....and so most of us have been influenced by our parents in that way. I iron the same way. I talk to random strangers. I tell my husband off when he stirs the stuff in the pan that I am cooking. I tell my dad off! I talk to cats. Well a lot of people do that!! I cant remember people's names and call them a completely wrong one. I follow my grandchildren on Instagram. Mum doesn't use Instagram but it's like the modern version of afternoon tea at your grandparents. You are never quite sure what they are going to ask you, or say. I'm sure my grandchildren panic every time they see I have made a comment. In fact it's so not 'cool' that I rarely make any comments. My own mother-in-law has a whole random conversation on Facebook sometimes and you wonder what on earth she is on about. We laugh, but I don't want to be like that.....yet! 

I have been told that we are as animated as each other too. Mum waves her arms around a bit when she talks, and I do the same. I have knocked over countless glasses of wine, and even once a whole full glass of water over my future mother-in-law. I'm like an arm helicopter when I am in full flow and I try to curb it as much as possible. There's passion in conversation, and then there is arm waving. Very dangerous if you are in the vicinity of it! We do things in a similar way. Silly things like cushions on the sofa, or how we place ornaments. I suppose its a genetic thing too? The mother nurture bit, and the fact parents teach their young in most cultures, and even in the animal world. I am left handed when I eat, using the knife and fork the opposite way round to most people. I am not left handed in much else, though I carry my shoulder bag on my right shoulder. Check it out and you will see most place it on their left shoulder. I prefer to hold my husbands hand using my own left one. But I write with my right hand, put my makeup on with the right hand, and sew using my right hand. It's a bit of a mixture which hand I use. I also seem to do the old double kiss bit starting the wrong side as most people. There is that moment of head shuffle when I almost kiss them on the lips, and then we get in to the flow. Highly embarrassing sometimes. But again I suppose that is because my mother has taught me a lot of things. 

I have often thought about whether we hold past experiences in our genetics? The body passes on physical characteristics like the shape of the nose, hair colour, body shape, so why not the way we act? DNA passes on physical characteristics and if you have done a DNA test, like I have, you will find out that all your cousins and distant cousins all share a little bit of the same DNA. It varies depending on how close a cousin you are, and is quite interesting to see how we are all intertwined in some way. If you look at old family photos you can sometimes see one dominant feature appear in every member. like the big nose or in my family very deep dark brown eyes. I didn't inherit those though. I have green eyes and hardly anyone else in the family has. On my mother's side they all have blue eyes or again very dark brown, and my father's side all have that deep dark brown, almost black. I appear to be a throwback. My eyes were hazel when I was a child but now they are a clear green/grey. Where my colour has come from no-one knows!  My brother has blue eyes and so do my sons. Both biological fathers of my sons had brown eyes. 

So back to personalities and such like. Are they inherited down through the genes? There are a number of factors that certainly influence personality, and I have been told that I am more like my father and grandfather than my mother, yet weirdly most people tell me I look like my mother. I am quite outgoing and sociable, but this is mixed with days where I totally need to stay away from people and am quite introverted. I am never in between. I am either one or the other. My mother is not like that. My father is and can be quite unsociable when he feels like it. Personality can be influenced by environment and upbringing, yet I have had 'new' cousins tell me I am just like another member of their family, even though we have never had anything to do with each other and live somewhere totally different, etc. What about memories?  Are they carried down the genes? Two of my cousins and I have a strong 'coming home' feeling when we are in a particular area of Wiltshire. I also get this when I go to the town where my mother was born in Germany. It could be because we have heard stories about the areas but it's an almost overwhelming in feeling for all of us. The area is where most of my ancestors were born, lived in and grew up in. Could it be possible that we have retained some sort of 'memory' of the area? Who knows. 

All I know is that I am definitely turning in to my mother, completely and utterly, with a few tweaks here and there. My sons gleefully tell me I am. When I plump up the cushions on our sofa I am determined not to do it like my mother does...…...but it still looks the same as hers *sigh*.