Her daughter was coming to town. It didn’t happen often enough anymore. Work brought her in occasionally, usually for a few days, and whenever the schedule allowed, they carved out an evening for dinner. Her daughter would ask the same question every time.
“Where do you want to go?” And she would give the same answer.
“I don’t care. As long as we’re together.”
She meant it.
There were few things she enjoyed more than sitting across a table from her daughter with nowhere else they needed to be. They could catch up properly. Not the quick phone call squeezed between appointments or the text that began with one question and somehow turned into seventeen messages. Dinner gave them time.
So the restaurant really didn’t matter…except apparently it did.
On one visit, her daughter suggested a steakhouse. “Sure,” she said. They went. She studied the menu. Steak. Steak. Larger steak. Steak with something on top of it. There was a salad she could order without the bacon and perhaps a collection of side dishes she could assemble into something resembling dinner.
Her daughter looked across the table.
“There’s nothing here for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re going to eat asparagus and a baked potato.”
“I like asparagus.”
“Mom.”
She laughed. “It’s okay.” Her daughter stared at her. “Why didn’t you say something?” ‘”Because I didn’t care where we went.” “Clearly you should.”
It became one of those ridiculous little arguments families have when both people are trying to be nice and somehow become annoyed with each other in the process. Her daughter was irritated because she’d asked. She was irritated because her daughter was making such a big deal about it.
“I just wanted to spend time with you.”
“And I just wanted you to have something for dinner besides side dishes.”
They eventually laughed about it.
Then they did almost exactly the same thing the next time.
“Where do you want to eat?” “Anywhere. You pick.”
A barbecue restaurant was suggested. She paused. There would probably be a salad.
“Okay.”
Her daughter looked at her. “No.”
“What?”
“We’re not doing this again.”
“Doing what?”
“Going somewhere you don’t want to go and then pretending you don’t care.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t eat barbecue.”
“There are sides.”
Here daughter just looked at her. She started laughing. Apparently asparagus and baked potatoes had become evidence in a case against her. But later she thought about it.
Why was this so difficult? She wasn’t someone who couldn’t make decisions. She had made thousands of them. Important ones. Decisions about work and money and family and people she loved. She could make a complicated decision when one needed to be made. But ask her where she wanted to have dinner and suddenly she became Switzerland.
Whatever everyone else wanted was fine.
For a long time, she’d thought of that as easygoing. Maybe some of it was. She genuinely didn’t need to control everything. She didn’t want every decision to revolve around her preferences. And after years of coordinating schedules, meals, children, holidays, work and all the moving pieces of a family, there was something lovely about saying, “You decide.”
Sometimes it meant, Your preference matters more than mine.
Sometimes it meant, I don’t want to make this difficult.
Sometimes it meant, I’m so accustomed to considering what everyone else wants that I haven’t stopped long enough to ask myself.
And sometimes it simply meant she hadn’t realized she was allowed to care about something small.
That surprised her. Not because anyone had told her she wasn’t allowed to have a preference. Quite the opposite. Her daughter had been asking.
The next time her daughter came to town, they were in the car when the question arrived.
“Where do you want to go for dinner?”
She almost answered automatically…It doesn’t matter as long as we’re together. The words were already there. Then she stopped. Her daughter waited. She thought about it. What did she want? Not what would be the easiest. Not what her daughter might prefer. Not what was nearby or had good parking or wouldn’t require a reservation. What sounded good to her?
“Actually…”
Her daughter turned toward her.
“I’d rather go to that little seafood place.” There was a pause. Then her daughter said, “Okay.” That was it.
No one was offended. No one accused her of becoming difficult. No one needed several days to process the shocking news that she had expressed a restaurant preference.
They went to the seafood place. She ordered something she actually wanted. And they talked for two hours. At some point during dinner, her daughter looked at her plate. “Better than asparagus?” She laughed. “Much.” “I’ve been asking you where you want to go for years.” “I know.” “Then why don’t you ever tell me?”
She started to give the familiar answer. Because being together mattered more. And it did. That hadn’t changed. But perhaps she’d been treating two things as though only one of them could be true. She could care deeply about being with her daughter and care where they ate. Her daughter’s preference could matter and so could hers.
The difference was smaller than that. She had participated in the choice. She sat back in her chair. “I think that I got so used to saying that it didn’t matter that I stopped checking whether it did.” Her daughter smiled.
“Well, next time I’m asking again.”
“Okay.”
“And you’re giving me an answer.”
She laughed. “We’ll see.”
“No. An actual answer.”
“Fine.”
They went back to their conversation. Nothing particularly important happened. She had chosen a restaurant. That was all. But on the drive back home later, she found herself thinking about how many times a day life quietly asked some version of the same question.
What would you like? What do you think? Would you rather? Do you want to go? Do you want to stay?
For years, she had been generous with those questions. She considered other people’s schedules, needs, feeling and preference without thinking. She didn’t want to stop doing that. She loved those people. Their choices mattered to her.
But perhaps somewhere along the way she had confused considering everyone else with removing herself from consideration. She hadn’t needed to. What she wanted didn’t have to determine every decision. But it deserved to be part of one.
A few weeks later, someone asked her another small question. She almost said, “Whatever you want.” Then she caught herself. There was the familiar little pause. She knew it now.
The moment between the answer she’d always given and the answer she actually want to give. She smiled.
“Actually, I’d rather…”
And this time, she finished the sentence.