My life could have been perfect, I’m pretty sure my mom feels that way. She says she feels tormented on the inside to see me suffer the way I do. She does not approve of my husband, she does not approve the way I changed ever since I met him. She just doesn’t approve anything I did, have done or will do.
A long time ago, I stopped trying to make it right. I stopped disillusioning myself for the happiness of her or any other person for that matter. There is no way I can make it right in her eyes, besides, any measures to get back in line with her dreams have long gone. Sometimes, I do think I could have had an easier life, an easier way of living at least. Life and “living life” are two different things, ya know?
Unfortunately or fortunately – depends on how you see it – life has been… painful, tearful, disappointing, mesmerizing but fun at times. My childhood was carefree, common problems with classmates and friends, plenty of shameful events and plenty of fun times. in hindsight, it was the foundation of my conscience of being “different” or bi-cultural. It was very clear from a young age I’m neither one or the other, but always and one plus the other totally opposing cultures. A sense of pride is what I got out of it, my life was just so much richer, unique and made me find a place somewhere in between even though never really belonging to one or the other. Sounds difficult, but it worked out for me, in a kind of double-agent way.
But perhaps because of my sense of not belonging, I was lost. But definitely because of my dad passing away at my blossoming age, I was lost even more. The future didn’t exist for a long time, school was of no interest, fleeing into good times at the clubs with my friends was what I wanted to do. That period of my life seems ever-stretching but seemed long, because that backlash happened quite some time after my dad’s passing. My dad. My hero. A man of not many words, only the very necessary. The calm factor within the family home, opposite to the explosive and drama queen character of my mom that I just could never really figure out.
I still can’t deal with the explosive character of my mom. We have been clashing back and forth ever since that strong, calm pillar left us. I’ve thought of running away many a times, running away from a situation that I didn’t know how to deal with. Even up til today, I don’t know how to deal with it which is why I moved away almost an hour from our family home. Not too close, not too far. It felt liberating.
I have barely 3 weeks left to deliver our second child and just a few nights ago, she broke me. Again. Just like during the first pregnancy. But you are not here. I can’t crawl away in your arms, I can’t feel you hugging me, I can’t hear you comforting me. I can’t get to that feeling that the two of us can face the world alone. And that hurts.
I keep telling the baby to wait for daddy to come home, it can’t be long now. It has to be.
I could have had an easy way of living, I could have had finished my studies all the way, I probably could have had my own house, my own capital. But instead, I took a different road. A difficult one, very rocky, the type of road you have to go all the way down first before you can reach the point where it can go uphill. A lot of times we can see how high the mountain is, but we just keep slipping down. I know a lot of women in my position would have quit a long time ago, there’s no way a woman could stay this loyal, this understanding, this enduring towards any man. At the expense of estranging from the rest of her family, her financial situation, her frustrations.
Christmas is coming near, but it means nothing to me. A New Year is coming ahead, but it’s meaningless. I live by the day, hoping the baby will stay in place for a while. I try to stay strong for the baby, for our son, but when I’m alone and have a moment of silence, I break down. I can’t stop crying until I distract myself again with cleaning up, moving things around, watching movies. I search the pictures on my mobile phone to see you and our son, smiling into the camera like it was yesterday. It’s been two months.
I could have had it all, but only as an empty shell, with that lonesome feeling of not belonging. But I chose to belong to myself and to my husband, on a tough bumpy road that only seems to be going down. But hey, we can still look up and see the sky. Together with you, that is a mighty feeling.