my mother and me | ✓

* | Other

My mom is not the most beautiful person on earth but she is the first beautiful person I ever saw. She was - is, but not so much now - the perfect one for me. My perfect mother and me. Unfortunately (or fortunately), that's not what it actually turned out to be.

Let me retell my ongoing relationship with my mother. I am not much of a relationship - commitment type of person - surprise, surprise - but astonishingly my mother has been my girlfriend for FOURTEEN whole years. I know, I still have a long way to go and probably fourteen years is just the beginning but I am glad I made it this far. So, on with the story.

When I was 0-4 years old:
o b l i v i o n

Not many actually remember the number of poops they had and I am not an exception. I don't recall anything except the fact that I broke my leg once and my mother was dead worried about me. She skipped work and I still remember her leaning on the white walls of the hospital room - tears running down her cheeks and sobs escaping through her every now and then - it was unnerving. I fell in love with her at that exact moment and then on, everything was perfect - until the irritating blurb of my brother popped into this world.

When I was 5-11 years old:
l o v e a n d c h e e s e

If someone asks me now, "You must have been very happy to have a brother?" - I probably would have said, "Yes. I was, but times change."

Everyone knows what happens when you have a brother. Your parents' love gets divided and that's probably worsened if your brother is actually eager to be a snob. But my mother didn't​ differentiate between us - not really. As a response to my whines, she used to say, "He's your little brother, sweetie. He needs my care like you did - when you were small. It's not good to be jealous, honey."

Yeah right.

Back then, I still received her cuddles. She still played with my tresses and kissed my cheeks before bedtime. But my brother - ever the asshole - would always insist on sleeping between my mother and me. And slowly, the excuse of him being an infant wore off of its novelty.

At first I started missing her affection, but there was also this fact that I loved my brother a lot. Time and again, the thought constantly bothered me that if I was given a choice, whom would I choose? My mother or my brother? And day by day, I became increasingly afraid that if I lose any one of them - where would I be? I didn't like to think of the repercussions. Suicide was a far better option.

A relationship is not always sunshine and rainbows. So when I was hurt by my brother's accusing comments and my mother's inconsiderate jibes, I actually attempted it.

My world was beset by do's and do not's - boundaries that were unclear in its purpose. Perhaps, knowledge is sometimes better than ignorance because curiosity murdered the feline.

When I was 12-13 years old:
p u b e r t y  a n d  p e r i o d s

Indignation does not remain suppressed for a long time. So - my first crush happened and my mother was very strict about things like these - you know, age and stuff. I told the next best person I trusted - my brother. My stupid brother? Why? Two reasons. One, I didn't want to let my mom down. Two, my brother forgot almost everything he heard. But I just had to be wrong. Right?

He spilled the beans and my mother lectured me for thirty minutes of how she didn't expect that from me, how I should amend my ways and be sorry. And I retorted, for the first time in my life. My first surge of defiance and I spent my whole day feeling shitty about it.

Truth to be told, I did cry a lot and any one gets irritated of incessant bawling and my mother did too. I mistook it as partiality. Jealousy was my best friend and my pillows were soaked with tears when I went to sleep at night. I started to question everything that was cultured into me and my parents thought I was deviating from 'the right path'. 

Add study pressure to the mix and I might as well be dead. Don't take me lightly when I say that my parents were concerned about my future. In fact, they were positively terrified that, ten years later, I would sit unemployed in their house - feasting on their money. You may be surprised but that's how it is.

But you can tolerate only for this long.

14 years and counting:
i n d i f f e r e n c e

As of now, I have grown to be immune to her scoldings and reprimands. It's quite heartless, when I think of it but I don't do anything to correct this. I am not a good daughter and I know it. Sometimes, she returns, tired from work and I shudder at how much she does for the two of us. She could have divorced dad and left us, but she didn't - in spite of the fact that her marriage is currently on rocks. On the lazy summer afternoons when my brother is sleeping, she tells me that she would like a new house - somewhere she could take care of us by herself. Maybe in a parallel universe where there was no Dad, no fights and no ambiguous indecisiveness. 

I wish I could grow up quickly and give her whatever she wants. Because this indebtedness is weighing me down. 

Some things have changed and still everything is the same. I get angry when she scolds me but still I cannot imagine my life without her. She is still my favourite person.

She can kill me or throw me into the Pacific Ocean, I will always love her. You can call me stupid and gullible but I don't care. 

She is my mother and I will love her. Even after everything is destroyed. I always have.

I guess this is love at first sight.