It's All Fun & Games Until the Moment It's Not and Someone Gets Caught

IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES

Until the Moment It’s Not

and …

Someone Gets Caught

I try to trace my past to the exact point this began. I question whether there was something I could have done, to have altered the trajectory of my life. My firstborn is no longer present. Well, he is not lost, per se. He could be tracked, for after all, he smokes me out, despite my best efforts to remain veiled. My son is one of the many we conceal and camouflage from; he is part of the nasty group that ensnared us in this viscous game of hide-and-seek. Not the “G” rated kid type, but the rated “R” type game that I do not recommend, even for those with the sturdiest of stomachs. You see, some people are like tracking dogs … they know how to find uncover me, and we are running out of places to hide. The prospect of the “bounty” never ceases to chill me, and I wonder how much is being paid to erase me from humanity. And the method … will it be by blade, bullet, or poison, or something novel like an insulin injection between my wee toes, as I sleep in a deep slumber, my lips slowly parting to release my last breaths. 

Thoughts of my demise inevitably tunnel me back to my children, or, more specifically, the two that are not yet adults, my daughters. These beauties are true living beings that remain found, and not yet astray. I resist the natural progression of life that is growth, which precedes the inevitable flying from the nest, my den. A Mother worth her salt has the first moment of clarity and understanding when her eyes lock with the face belonging to the wrinkly bambino, fresh from her womb. In this instant a mother knows with certainty that she will spend the rest of her life loving this miniscule human in what is perhaps the most profound love affair, because the magnitude of love and devotion are unreciprocated – the firstborn is the start of the first unreciprocated love affair. For a mother falls in love with her youngsters, and each time she thinks the love cup is full, the little one does or says something that proves the cup only grows. And it is darn near impossible for a woman to ignore the daily reminder that the recipient of her energy, time, resources, and patience is gearing up to fly away into the world, one small step at a time. And surely even the most abundantly loving of children can never appreciate the depth of love felt by a mother, because it is the child that leaves and the mother that is left standing on the platform, waving goodbye, whilst salty tears contort her features. Because a child that is properly raised-up isn’t questioning what it will feel like to leave the nest. Rather, a healthy child is full of burgeoning desires, wishes and dreams that consist of world domination, love, travel, and making his or her own legacy. 

 Brining a child into this world is magnificent and torturous – just like childbirth, really. I remember, with painstakingly clarity, the year my daughters changed. Somehow, seemingly overnight, they went from wee beans that clambered behind me, to slightly standoffish, hesitantly bored mini adults. My suggestions of biking round the block, doing our hair, or bingeing on pizza and ice-cream, were rebuked with bland enthusiasm, or patent rejection. At this juncture I knew I could no longer deny the truth that underscored Motherhood – a harrowing journey of sacrifice and loneliness that is marred by the wake of discarded dreams and lovers that served as necessary sacrifices. Motherhood is a unilateral display of giving to insatiable creatures that feel as rare and special as fairies and unicorns. Being a mom is the closest I shall come to the elusive “altruistic-being”. 

As mine grew, I could not debunk what was before me -  that slowly over time, my daughters stopped needing me and began to see me. They stopped looking at me like I walked on water and instead zeroed their curious eyes on my wrinkles, and turned up their pert noses as they caught whiff of my morning breath. They twitted and tutted at the accidental farts, and too loud greetings. The once darling eyes that luminated with adventure and impetuous transformed into sharp lasers that saw through my skin and straight to my soul, narrowing in on my foibles and darkness. As my girls forged towards the age of double-digits I was forced to reckon with the lies and fabrications generated by Disney, novels and televisions. Fantasies and story tales were the fabrics that wove unconscious narratives about what it meant to be a Mother. 

Women have stood up and fought for rights that were thrown at men. As women reached forward with clambering hands, desperate to secure an advantage or privilege, the men held onto their place in the world, leaving grotesque claw marks behind each successful landmark taken from them and allotted to a strong woman whose name is forgotten and not taught in our sorely lacking education system. Greater women than me earned females the collective privilege of voting, working outside the home, and to no longer be spanked or struck in accordance with the “Rule of Thumb”. Even as a wee girl I knew that no little tot wished to grow up to be a sex object with a destiny of spending her life on her back and knees. And somehow, right under my seeing eyes, those closest to me were taken, funnelled into the dark markets of child pornography and sex trafficking. I missed the early signs, and it was not until way too late that I witnessed those nearest and dearest had become sexualized objects that endured ruthless hate caused by the magnetic worship that accompanies sexual deviance and clandestine indulgences in the inappropriate wanting.  

My daughters and I live a life of cat-and-mouse or catch us if you can. To stay alive, we must never let the momentum slow to full cessation. As we oscillate towards stationary and lean into the hiding, we must be sure to find a way out, before it is too late. Survival is contingent upon continual adaptation and frequent relocation. We never seem to have the winning pieces for the game, not the ones we need, anyhow. And I adapt by playing with the pieces we have, which is movement on a six-week cycle, like clockwork. The timing is not so much tracked through calendar or clock as it is catalogued through smell and heightened senses. The men, usually those at the bottom of the food chain, get close and start to circle, first waiting for our arrival at the grocery and lingering behind us at the gas pumps. Next, they lurk in the shadows of my home and flick on switches and remove face creams and lotions. During the dark hours of the early mornings, they joy ride in my car and return to infect our living space – they walk with watery eyes and leave behind a lingering smell of waste, rot, cheap sex and mold. And in rote, my sweet girls start packing up what they can carry and waiting for me. As we take those familiar steps down new trails and clamber into our ride, the men lurk on corners, leer from idling car windows, and snap our location to their lot. 

We hide in plain sight. We pass time with dice, fairy tales, singing, and mundane television. Anger mounts deep in my soul at the knowing that we are blocked from banalities like “freedom” and “safety”. Darkness pierces my skin and seeps into my heart because they laugh and snicker and lurk and leer. They are having a blast. I have found but one way to keep my tiny amber light burning within my soul. The one trick I savor as our last resort. And cherish this I do, because I know that if my light were to ever burn out, darkness would consume me, and I would become sick and tarnished, like the lot of them. We get up after our falls. We manage through hunger and fear because we know that it is all fun and games, until someone gets caught. And then, and quite possibly only then, will the spider web of deception, filth and lies, begin to unravel, leading to the black widow at the centre, just waiting to be exposed. 

Quite simply, this is a game. But every game that is driven by greed, lust and power continues until the leader has become indiscernible; the tail wags the dog. Similar to when my girls laugh and howl and poke and tease, only to culminate in the same ending, every time: rage and hurt feelings. Because the games are fun until they are not. And I just know that this game has gone too far. And that for them, it will continue to be all fun and games until it’s not and someone gets caught. And then the spider web will be pulled apart, thread by thread, and the lot of them will come tumbling down, limb by limb – like Humpty Dumpty who sat on that great wall. 

Humans don’t live lives, they life patterns. My flaws continue, even as the facts change and in spite of yearning and wanting to be more, better. I worry that the evil around us will wear me down and tantalize me away from the right side of integrity and truth. Because deceit, subterfuge and betrayal run rampant, and the conductor is greed and power. 

The older I get the more I see that humans are nothing more than a walking contradiction of imperfections. That marriage and motherhood, a childhood dream, becomes, for many women, the catalyst for a present-day nightmare. A man’s greatest fear is that women will laugh at him. And a woman’s darkest fear is that a man will kill her. I spend my days sprinting from my past, never quite fast enough. The hot breath and stank of the last man I trusted is never far enough behind. At night, my brain cycles through the unanswerable question of how it can be that most of all that I achieved has become undesirable and destined for discard; nothing promised is what I want. Or maybe I wanted all the wrong things and had to acquire them to learn this dirty lesson. 

Mothers are the hands that can gift our daughters the earth, or, failing that, carve out the path for a life of destruction and misery. Afterall, a woman is the architect of her life. How does a mother teach a small child that it is the people we trust that will destroy us completely. That our castle is only as strong as the greatest sinner and betrayer in the group. Connection with others is important. Or so we are led to believe. Yet the connection with another is often the surest way to ensure a violent and untimely death. Because death and destruction occur, at the hand of another human, in one way or another. Listening to words of others has been to my detriment, the start of my end. Yet words are powerful, inspire change, create hope. A combination of words and actions can compel a revolution.  A woman must never forget to quit while she is ahead. Because it is all fun and games, until it is not, and someone gets caught.

Author: Jane

Dated: April 14, 2024