It’s been a long time since I write something on this blog.
I journal every day, sometimes twice a day in fact, since it’s my main form of release. I keep my journals, but I hardly ever reread them and most of the time I delete them eventually. I write to get it out of my system. Although nobody reads this blog, these posts are public so I take more care about how I write and what I write about. I also try to have some clarity at the end of my musings.
Today is my youngest daughter’s birthday. She’s turning 14, and it’s one of those happy days for her. Her birthday is on a Friday, she looks beautiful, she has love from her family and friends and next year is full of hope and possibilities for her. A writer I admire a lot: “Alain de Bottom” said that parents are sometimes envious of their children and, although it sounds preposterous, he makes a fair point.
This happens more often in instances where you didn’t have a happy childhood or adolescence, and your child does. I mean, we all say that deep inside we want our children to have what we didn’t have, but maybe what we want is for US to have what we didn’t have, so we subconsciously try to live through our children. It's an attempt at going back in time and rewriting history, which, as we know, is impossible. We can become parasites of sorts, or we can try to project our dreams into theirs. I guess all my posts do get a little dark, but it is after all a journal of an unsettled mind.
I know that accepting that my 14 years old birthday was nonexistent and extremely miserable is something that happens slowly. Acceptance, like all emotions, can’t be forced. We welcome them, but they come as they choose. At age 14 I didn’t have a friend in the world and my family was scattered. I don’t remember it. I don’t remember cake, or presents, or smiles, or even anything. I might have been disassociated. I spend a lot of my teen years simply going through the motions so as not to feel the immense loneliness and depression that consumed me every day and night.
This is my blog, so YES, I’m allowed to make it about me. I already decorated the living room with balloons, took the pictures, bought the presents, gave the hugs and saw that huge smile on her adorable teenage face. I can give space to my 14 year old self who needs attention and a little comfort as I grieve what I didn’t have and let acceptance come with compassion and release.
Having daughters is a constant healing and opening of wounds. My girls have the most important things – in my opinion – that anyone should have: the freedom to be themselves, to think their thoughts, to be loved through their moods, to be left alone when they need space, and support as they navigate the growing pains of womanhood.
I grieve that I didn’t have any comfort through my broken hearts, through my puberty moods, through my low self-esteem growing up, through the extreme neglect of all my basic needs.
The wounds open, I listen, I let them bleed, I tend, I nurse and I smile. I am me. I am free. I am a good mom. If I envy, it only makes me human. But emotions come in chunks. Envy mixed with pride. Sorrow mixed with excitement.
The world is our oyster. My daughters will explore it and, while I still breathe, my 14 and 42 year old self can stand strong in the safe world I created for me where I’m allowed to be left alone to nurse my wounds, to cry, to write and to breathe life as it was given to me, for all of it is beautiful and the only reality is now, as my fingers type and I feel proud of myself for writing truth again, raw and messy, but real human truth. I am not ashamed to be human.
