This is a time of transition. I look in the mirror and see you staring back at me. I see my folded hands and think about the way you used to do the same. See the curve of my belly and wonder if this is your body or mine. Our relationship has always been difficult. At least from my point of view. I thought I just wanted you to love me, but perhaps it is more complicated than that. I've needed you from the moment I was born, but your own worries and distractions stretched out the distance between us. Much like watching someone unnoticed while they stare at a scene out of the window. I feel like I have stood in your peripheral vision, listening to you list all your ills and lost opportunities, while screaming inside for you to notice me. But I was the thorn in your side. The independent reminder of all that was taken from you when you became a mother. I represented the erosion of your potential by the constant winds of my demands on you. No matter that you had 3 more. I seemed to be the one that irked you the most. The one you subconsciously tried to bring down with covert whispered words of so and so dying or falling on hard times.
I have tried to be as strong as I can. But you have hurt me many times. I remember you reading my diary and hurling my tender adolescent words back at me, like a shotgun bucking in your arms. I remember listening to you rant about all my failings in the hallway while your incomplete grandchild fell suspended in time on the bathroom floor. I remember coming home with my first child, raw and bruised from the efforts of labouring alone, and how broken I felt when grasping at the baby you gestured absentmindedly at the kitchen for me to go and make myself a cup of tea. All I wanted was my mum. A hug. A smile. You did well. I'm so proud of you. But this sums up our time together. I am open, waiting for comfort, waiting for love. And you tell me I am wrong, talk to your father, make amends, you just don't understand what it's like for me. And clearly I don't, because I am still a 5 year old girl, standing in your peripheral vision, waiting for you to notice me, to defend me from the bullies of life, to stroke my hair, to protect me, and tell me that it's all going to be ok. You've got this, because I've got your back, no matter what.
And now you never will. Years of regret finally took their toll and your brain has given way. If you don't like the life out there, there is nowhere else to go but within. So deep within you have gone. The faltering words don't come, the mind cannot hold onto thoughts, the body is stiff and in pain, and all you want to do is sleep. You have managed to retreat to a place where I can never reach you. Where you can never notice me standing there. Now you look at me and don't know who I am. I used to be that nice lady who rubbed your legs and plaited your hair. But now I am a stranger trying to steal your shoes, batting away at my hands while calling out to your husband to save you.
I too have inflicted my own mother wounds. Turned away from the newborn limbs in my peripheral vision waiting to be born. I'm so sorry, but I can't do this now. I closed my eyes, did what I had to do, and watched my heart cave in as the limbs faded into the darkness. The seed of my betrayal to motherhood has sat in the cavern of my heart, and a shiny luminescent pearl has formed around it. It itches and irritates my tissues from time to time. But if I blink and look away the feeling subsides, eases down to a dull ache that I feel in the small of my back as a reminder of my inability to be a good grown up and make good decisions. So perhaps when I look at you, I see my own part in this. I am one of a long line of women who have lost those closest to them, whether by fault or circumstance, and have learnt to live with the deep raw pain of it every day.
Someone told me to say all I had to say, to visit and be with you while I can. Because they don't want me to fall into the seduction of regret like you did. But I don't know how to bridge the void that is 40 years wide. I don't know how to touch someone who never let themselves be touched by me. I don't know how to be soft with someone who knew how to sting my sensitivity like paper cuts. And now I look like you. My ageing face is becoming yours. The shape of my body is relaxing into your mould. A part of me watches this transition and is scared. If I am becoming you does that mean that we are one and the same? Am I destined for my mind to give way just as yours has. Or will things be different for me. I don't know. I have all the same doubts and resentments that you had - becoming a mother means I am not myself anymore. No career, poor self-image, feeling tired and grumpy with the life I've been plunged into. But I love my children deeply, and they love me. This I know. We hug and kiss a lot. I love the sound of their giggles and their exuberance. I look them deep in the eyes. They talk to me. I try to help with their fears and struggles. Encourage them and support them in their endeavours. I am learning about myself and what it means to be human all the time, and I am living a life beyond anything I ever thought was possible. Learning how to be the loving space that allows them to build resilience and peace in the world.
I wish I could say all these things to you. How despite it all I still want my mum. That I am still waiting. Waiting for your to change your mind and say that you're not leaving me for good. Instead I will have to hold on to the things that you have taught me - how to cook food with soul. How to create a rich and nourishing home. How to show kindness with action and not with empty words. How to build motherly connection with the people around you. And above all how to stand proud and tall because all I am today is a consequence of the long line of strong women who came before me. Those who endured their loss and their heartbreak with heads held high and a straight back, who smiled and toiled until their bodies couldn't take anymore. I am a mother just like them. I feel them gathering around me, their hands on my shoulder. squeezing gently, letting me know - we are here, we've got your back, you've got this. We are proud of you.
