I seem to have been born not fitting in to my culture and then got worse with age

Am back in Malta after soaking up family and friends for three weeks in Northern Ireland over the Christmas holidays.  I didn’t get to see many friends and am amazed how the time flew in.  I also realized that I am a foreigner in my own country and find it perversely difficult to blend in.  Let me explain an incident that occurred which crystallises what is tricky to put into words.

My mother and my son were having coffee in a small café in the Whitehouse in Portrush.  It is a shop that sells everything from bedding to pots, clothes to furniture and on the upper floor there is a café overlooking the street.  I don’t shop there as when I once lifted a blouse to examine it I found that it was priced at a ridiculous price of ₤165 reduced to ₤99 and that put me in a foul mood.  Even looking around at the ridiculous ornaments, no one would want, costing hundreds, has me muttering, “Is this a joke, or what?” in outraged tones. 

It does serve reasonable coffee and that was why the three of us were having cappuccinos in the café high above the street.  A lady at the nearby table leaned across and said to my mother,

“That is a lovely colour of jumper.” 

Before I could stop myself I replied,

“Yes, shame about the face!” 

In our family we do routinely tease each other and my mother was not surprised.  The lady however was offended and her husband asked me, in cold tones,

“Have you been drinking?” 

Realising, I had offended these polite folk I tried to explain,

“No, it is just that I’ve spent years being asked if my mother is my sister and it has made me sensitive to people complimenting her.” 

My mother and son laughed and so did I.  My Mum’s recent holiday with her sister visiting me in Malta was typical.  Everyday we would walk miles along the coast and each day someone would ask, “Are you three sisters?”  We do have similar colouring but there is a thirty-year age difference, so you can understand my sensitivity.  As far as I was concerned the neighbouring table’s angry response was funny but also strangely admirable.  They felt I had offended my eighty-year-old mother and were stiff with fury!  Oblivious, the three of us enjoyed our coffees.  On my way to the toilet, I passed the nearby table and the man instructed me,

“You should swing by Spectsavers! (a local opticians)”. 

His upset was tangible and again I admired their heated defence of my mother.  After all, if an elderly person was being abused verbally, these people would not sit idly by and let it happen.  Surely, a good thing?  I returned to my mother and son and we collected our coats and began to leave.  My mother, always goodhearted and even tempered, wished the neighbouring occupants a merry Christmas, as did my son and received a warm response.  However, when I wished them the same, all three carefully averted their heads, stiff with distain, and ignored me pointedly. 

I found it all vaguely amusing but by now my son was irritated and wanted to go back to the table to speak to them.  I restrained him with a warm hug and said, “It’s not them, it’s me.  They belong here and I evidently don’t.”  At such times you identify how foreign you are, how much of an outsider you have become.  The worrying thing is, I seem to have been born not fitting in to my culture and then got worse with age!