Conversations with myself/my mother.

Twelve is blue. I love you, my mother says, almost as an afterthought, as she is heading out the door. I have waited 12 years for these words. The savouring feeling comes with a certain kind of bittersweetness, a feeling I had become accustomed to. Begging and scraping for any kind of affection has made me hard. I do not respond. 

The next years pass in a haze with only glimpses of memories in-between. 

Thirteen is a numbing sea, all ragged greys, no colour in sight. Hovering through life a few feet above my head, I am the ghost of a spectator for a game I have seen countless times. Bare feet touching the pavement, feeling only a heavy tug towards the earth - can I even call this a life? Mother would say yes, it is better than the alternative. She should know. 

Fourteen is black, a void sucking everything into its gaping mouth. The thumping upstairs is louder than my heartbeat. Often I feel trapped, enveloped in a mass that is nearly transparent but impossible to escape. Thump. Thump. Thump. And I listen. Listen to the screaming shouting yelling that never seems to stop whether it’s my neighbours that seem to break everything they love or my self-deprecation. I fear it’s inherited. This inability to break down the glass wall, separating me from others, seeing everything distorted. 

Fifteen is yellow, all fireflies and first loves. Cherries dangle from a tree. Our hands touch as I reach for them, a mindless fumble that ends with our hands intertwined. His touch feels like home but I do not know what home is. I open my mouth but no words escape. Hold me. Have I have found my escape from bittersweet moments?

Sixteen is cherry red. Fire flows from his fingertips as we dance, electrocuting my body. Hands searching for something to hold us down in the frenzy of ecstasy and numbness but we fall deeper and deeper down. Passion bleeding from my lips as my heart fills with unbridled lust and I have tried to find myself in so many lips but found only regrets. How do I escape the circle of life? Am I set to follow my mother’s mistakes, falling pregnant at 18 only to abandon the same child 12 years later?

Seventeen is forest green, packing a bag and leaving, heading through the wilderness of New York City streets for days on end. I need to escape. Away is the only way I know. From the moment I was nine I have known - there is no home for me. In that moment - I’m unloading the dishes, serenaded by a chorus of screams - I know you’re cheating on me with that slut - I made a promise to myself. Running away. My feet are tired and begging me to stop. I cannot stop. Not now, not ever. I will fulfil my promise.

Eighteen is cream, hopeful dreams and sleepy kisses. I dream of the truth, something real after so many years of waiting. I dream of a gentle summer breeze, bringing with it the last unbothered wisps of adolescence that I have never experienced. I dream of us, drinking coffee on his balcony while sharing a cigarette. I’m lounging in my dad’s worn-out t-shirt and now he’s constantly hugging me even though in the end his touch and voice were the first frostbite of winter. I dream of easy sun-kissed mornings. But mostly I dream of him. Him, with his calm presence that can calm the rocking waves inside of me. Him, with his loving touch and I never have to fear for this hand to strike me, never mind whether he wants to. Him, I do not know who he is but I hope he will pull me out of this hole I was born into. I’m waiting.

Nineteen is blinding white, illuminating and finally I see clearly. I have had enough. There is a certain kind of clarity when one takes control of one’s life. The glass wall is broken. Idolising another human being is the worst thing you can do to them. Our parents aren’t perfect. This turmoil in my mind is not the worst thing to have happened. Miracles happen and miracles end and it is better to claw my way into this world that to have everything handed to me on a silver platter. Love will not save you. You are born alone and you will die alone. This is a kind of clarity nobody can take from me. I am in control.

I shake down the memories washing over me and flop down on the leather couch, grabbing a beer. Living with 3 roommates isn’t ideal but hey, we all do what we gotta do. Besides they are my new-found family, Emily with the crooked smile and a passion for aeronautics, Jackson with two whirlwinds of ocean eyes, Kyle with a laughter so loud, it could tear down buildings. They took me in after I had been living on the streets for days. Kyle found me rummaging through a dumpster, hit me up with a hey, you need a place to stay?, I had been desperate enough to accept this invitation from someone I did not know and it was settled. They were good people, each one with their own reasons to working crappy day-to-day jobs and barely making rent. I was not the one to complain though. They saved me. We spend our days in a bohemian idyll, people always coming and going, cooking together, partying with what leftover energy we have after passing our days, using whatever is the substance-of-the-month. While we all might have or reasons for doing this, nobody would choose to live like us. God, I know I wouldn’t. I had long abandoned my idea of the one and the only and scrummaged whatever love I could find around me - the grocery store clerk, our local librarian. Mother would disapprove, I think. Good.

Turns out turning sweet after a lifetime of sour is not so easy.

Hey, guys - the reminiscent moment is once again destroyed, this time by a knock at the door. I open. Colours come flooding all over me and suddenly I’m twelve again, clutching my teddy bear to my chest - mom, why are you leaving - as I stare into a tear-stained face that might as well be my own. So devastatingly blue. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel blue ever since I was that horribly lonesome child, pouring out my sadness into undeniably questionable expressions - breaking pencils, screaming at my father, crying over homework I honestly did not give two shits about. But right in that moment…I felt blue.

Without a word I move to the side and let my estranged mother into our home. My roommates’ confusion is visible on their worried faces. Jen, are you okay? I wave them away. They leave. 

Jen, I’m so sorry, out come the words I should’ve heard so long ago. 

I stare, only one question on my mind. A life or death matter, a question that has plagued me for a multitude of lifetimes.

Why did you leave?

I… I was young. I wanted to experience life, I wanted to finish my studies, find a love, a real love.

What a shit excuse. I know it’s true though. I always know when it’s true, black like the honest sin-filled eyes of a man screaming I love you in moments of pleasure.

Did you?

I… No. I did not. 

Pity, I sit down, taking a sip from my beer. 

Mom sighs. Babygirl, you are my real love. You always have been.

Jesus Christ, that is such a fucking cliche! Where was your motherly love when I had my first period, when I had my first heartbreak, when I cut myself shaving for the first time? My tears are waves, overtaking me and pushing me further and further away from the shore. I want you to leave.

Babygirl, don’t do this to me. We can make up for lost time. I promise.

As I look into her hazel eyes, all I can see is a paining vulnerability. It hurts. It hurts because  I know my eyes are showing the same, the need for a loving hand and a nurturing smile I have never experienced, I do, I want her love. I need it. I say the only word springing into my mind, even as I know she does not deserve this. Long ago I learned that undeserved second chances have the possibility of springing into excruciatingly beautiful firsts. 

Okay.

She is surprised and I don’t blame her. She envelops me into a hug - it is almost enough to make up for all the love lost. Right in that moment, for the first time in my life, I abandon my emotion rationalising into colours. I just feel. Feel the enormous gap between us start to shrink, even if only a little.  

Finally, I’m orange as eight years later I respond. I love you. Maybe this is how it was always supposed to be. Maybe our mothers are imperfect human beings with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Maybe is no longer a bittersweet lie I tell myself, maybe is the only truth in this fear-stricken world. Those tiny three words that hold the power of a thousand lifetimes are filled with pieces of all of my maybe’s I have picked up along the way. And I do, I truly do, in spite of all the pain she has caused me, I love her, I love her, I love her.

The rest of my life passes in a hazel flurry. Hazel eyes brimming with joy and pride over my first job. Hazel eyes as she grips my hand tighter at my wedding. Hazel eyes slowly, almost resisting, closing as she lies upon her deathbed. Everything after that is grief stricken and dark brown. 

Life without a mom is hard. Life with a mom is harder. It is worth it though. I have lived and relived the moments of her coming into my life again and again, paralysed with fear of even the possibility of me missing out on my hazel moments. The cycle of what-if’s and what-not’s is the most vicious of them all. 

I’m still in contact with my old roommates, each having moved on with their lives. Substance-of-the-month for Emily has shifted to employee-of-the-month - she always had an enviable work ethic, always pestering us on about cleaning the kitchen. Jackson - well, he married rich and honestly good for him. He’s happy. Kyle is a business owner now, taking in foster children and connecting them to their forever homes. Seems fitting. Me? I’m a mom. Breaking the vicious cycle, I hope to never let my little girl feel blue. Thats what your 20’s are for. Right now, our lives are a whirlwind of ice-cream dates and girl’s nights. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t ever thought of packing up and leaving. In those moments, I know why she did what she did. I understand. But no longer I feel blue.