I used to hear my mother complain all the time about housework. In winter, her hands would crack. Painful, bleeding, hard to put in water.

So I bought her an expensive hand cream. The kind that actually works. But one time I came home and realized she hadn’t used it at all.

She was still complaining.

I asked her why. She said, “If I use it, my hands get slippery. It makes housework harder. It gets in the way.”

To me, the solution seemed obvious. Apply it, rest for a bit, wait until it absorbs, then continue. But she couldn’t hear that. She simply couldn’t stop.

That was the moment I realized how ridiculous it is! Sometimes, to force others to operate according to my own logic. Everyone lives inside their own system. Everyone follows a different rhythm. Every life moves along a different trajectory.

In my mother’s world, rest doesn’t exist. For her, housework is her value. Only when everything is spotless, floors shining, windows clean does she receive praise from family and friends.

In my house, you never see dust. Everything visible is arranged perfectly. Perhaps her entire world runs on those small, predictable compliments.

To me, they feel cheap. So cheap that I sometimes wonder: how many people truly, consistently care? Many homes aren’t that clean. But their owners spend time learning, enjoying themselves, traveling, socializing.

My mother, on the other hand, lives inside a schedule packed to the minute. Year after year. Day after day. Cleaning from one corner to the next. No step skipped. No rest allowed. Time is sealed airtight. So nothing is allowed to interrupt the flow. Anything that disrupts her continuous movement breaks the system. And when the system breaks, anxiety and restlessness flood in, emotions she cannot tolerate.

Her hands are allowed to hurt. Pain is familiar. Pain is acceptable. Pain is even proof evidence of her selfless contribution to the family.

But stopping? Stopping is foreign. Rest and pleasure, in her world, are moral failures. They are wasteful. Degenerate. Meaningless. If you stop producing, you become useless.

That’s when I understood: not everyone is capable of understanding the idea of “you’re allowed to pause.” In my mother’s worldview, stopping is forbidden. Caring for oneself is a luxury. Efficiency outweighs comfort. Endurance is virtue.

And I am grateful I didn’t inherit that belief. I don’t want to live bound by those old rules. Perhaps this refusal is the freedom I’ve always been searching for.



—— XC Scribbles · 捌拾 LXXX 🧴