I
thought I had willed her into being, I foolishly and arrogantly imagine I had
created her from myself, from my dreams, my thoughts, my aspirations, I
imagined I can see myself again, only better, myself with more; more
opportunities, more space to feel, more room to grow, but most importantly
myself loved. I believe I had a glimpse of that, but as she celebrated her
tenth birthday with her friends yesterday I saw that I was naive, she wasn’t
me, she wasn’t myself living a much better life than I had, she was separate
from me, a full, complete and intact person, with her own ideas, with her own
intentions and desires. The bond I imagined unbreakable never really existed
except in my mind and I felt almost selfish for only seeing her through my own
eyes, never seeing her through hers. The baby that came to me wide eyed and adoring
“mummy, can I have this?”, “mummy, can I do that?” was now loud, vulgar and
almost unkind “No Mom! we don’t need anything, we’re fine” I almost heard “just
leave us alone” implied but not quite
said out loud. I saw her exaggerating her excitement, her laughter at every
nonsense she and her friends said or did, her carelessness and indifference
towards me, the garish music they played and how they closed the door when they
danced not wanting me to watch. Even her body language seemed to initiate a
distance and a foreignness I could not bridge. This was her world, her private
self, the stranger she managed to create far from my imposing and heavy
motherly attention and I couldn’t be a part of it, in that world I did not exist,
as if no space was capable of holding both me and that cool independent pre-teen
version of her at the same time. I retreated to my room and read a book only checking
every once in while to see if they needed anything. Once her friends were gone and I managed
to clean up some of the mess they made she came to me again, small, timid and loving
“thank you mummy, today was great” my eyes teary, understanding now how hard it
was for both of us, playing these roles, needing each other to understand without
words, how multicoloured love can be, how many endless hues it had warm and cold,
how much it can hurt, how much it can take.
