I spent a lot of time in what seems like nostalgia. In some ways, it is, truth.
But what I'm trying to do is go back to when there was more to life than just survival.
What did I want to do? Who did I want to be? What mark did I want to leave?
And I play out old fantasies: a busker, a singer, a writer.
A mother.
Sometimes, I wish I was more stupid. Look at Maren. No matter how much Sabastian hates her, he'll always love her.
She'll always have done something, however badly.
I play out potential lives, with potential offspring.
I look them in the face, and tell them I'm not as arrogant as I seem.
The first five years are easy. There are very few variations on a theme, and playing that right is a science.
People are occassionally uneducated, but mostly just too lazy to do the right thing; it has nothing to do with complexity.
(And I hate when people tell me that I can't speak on it, because I am not a parent. That's what gives me the right to, because I look at it from the child's perspective. I have no investment into justifying the status quo in order to look myself in the mirror and say I'm doing the best I can, when it's just the easiest for you at the expense of them. If you wanted easy, you should've gotten a cat. And don't even get me started on the parents who put more effort into their dogs than their children.)
But after that? A child explodes into a person.
And you have to know that you will fail. Like your parents failed.
You walk into parenthood knowing you're going to fuck that little potential person up.
Because they are people. Individuals. Not-you, no matter how much you see your past on their face.
You will never predict what they need, what they'll do, when to protect them and when to let them go, properly, because they're not you.
And the best we can ever do, is look through our own eyes.
Your only hope is to fuck them up less than you were fucked up.
There are no single parents, you know. Just families where one or more parental figures are bought.
And you can't ever be sure of the emotional investment of a bought parent.
(You can't ever be sure of the emotional investment in biological parents either, but aside from noting its truth, it's so contrary to my own truths as to surpass my capability to understand. How can you not love a child? How can you not love your own "flesh and blood", as the saying goes?)
And children deserve to be loved, above all else.
A starving child, living on the street, that is loved grows up more grounded than a rich kid raised by a rotating blur of faceless nannies.
Because it's that early love that gives us any root into humanity.
Sometimes, I think this is crueler than getting sick in the first place.
Getting the potential of my life back, with so little time to do anything with it before normal ageing cuts its strings.
I have no time to experiment anymore. No time to make mistakes.
And not mistakes like so many in my generation wistfully whine about.
I have no urge to partying and one-night stands.
(Though certain drugs are intriguing, I don't consider that a "mistake" as my aim is growth.)
But if I were to die now, there would be nothing to mark me, except freeing up the drain on the social services.
Probably better used on someone redeemable.
I've found I'm *more* suicidal now, not less.
I never did well with sandbox scenarios.
So, I dissect the remains of a girl who died when the doctor uttered the words, "You will never get better".
Not to hopelessly attempt to revive her, but to learn from her.
What did it feel like to believe that independence was possible?
What did I do, when I could do anything?
Underneath the personae I built to be endearing and protected, what's left?
What would that little girl, who used to always be first up the stairs to chase the monster, think? |
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