Every time I come back home, I want to see my grandmother. Maybe there are not so many things we tell each other, but it's that feeling of 'being home' when I am near her. I know, things have changed and the places reversed... and now I am her shoulder... and it's sometimes heartbreaking to see this role-switch. But near her I have the same feeling (although in a different note) that I have when I am with my dogs - being with somebody who knows you for what you are and who loves you for what you are. No expectations to live up to... you are just loved for being yourself.
In the recent months, or maybe in the last year or so, I noticed her changing. She became grumpier, she whines all the time about everything and oh well... in a way she is too self centered to notice the world around, or sometimes even some common sense facts (such as the fact that nobody actually steals a pair of socks from you). The feeling of comfort was replaced with one of uneasiness... and powerlessness ... I look at her slowly decaying and it's nothing I can do to stop it. Time is mercilessly taking its toll and I am made to watch the massacre.
Her dog also got older and sicker, so I have to watch them both getting slowly closer to disappearing from my life. Together with my grandma, however, goes the only person that knows me and loves me since I was born... and my loneliness just increases. I look at her hands, with the fingers now twisted by age and I remember her stroking my hair, as a child... just as I remember my grandfather's hands petting my shoulders and telling me not to worry, because after a storm only good weather can come. Their hands made me what I am today, or at least what's good in me, and without their touch the world is an emptier place.
One can say that I have my parents, so I should not be that affected... old people die and this is the law of nature. It's true, but they WERE my parents... and I don't have a family of my own to compensate their loss. I will be left with my mother and ... oh well, this would be it. I can only smirk at this idea... if I am asked how is my mother, I generally shrug. I do not know what to say... and when it comes to her, I try not to blame her too hard. However, I was thinking lately that it's not fair... I save her image against my own sanity. How fair can this be?
I look back to my childhood and I see no love coming from her. Just weakness and irresponsibility to her own (undesired, in all honesty) offspring. And to her life, if we are at it, but this is not my problem. She stayed in a marriage of constant arguing and abuse... and fine, if she didn't care about herself I cannot blame her. But she seemed too blind to figure out that their marriage messed me up completely... and that once you have a child, this becomes your main responsibility. Both of my parents were actually too busy caring for themselves to notice they have some duties... and too preoccupied with their own dramas to be able to love anything or anyone other than themselves.
For a long while I looked at this ironically and I talked about it with bitter cynicism. But lately... looking at myself, I can't do that anymore. I see my own insecurity, my lack of points of reference when it comes to defining what I want to do with my life... all those things that I needed to figure out by myself because they failed to provide me with... and I can only look back in anger.
Sometimes, being angry is what helps you move on. And as they say... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Who cares about the scars anyway?
In the recent months, or maybe in the last year or so, I noticed her changing. She became grumpier, she whines all the time about everything and oh well... in a way she is too self centered to notice the world around, or sometimes even some common sense facts (such as the fact that nobody actually steals a pair of socks from you). The feeling of comfort was replaced with one of uneasiness... and powerlessness ... I look at her slowly decaying and it's nothing I can do to stop it. Time is mercilessly taking its toll and I am made to watch the massacre.
Her dog also got older and sicker, so I have to watch them both getting slowly closer to disappearing from my life. Together with my grandma, however, goes the only person that knows me and loves me since I was born... and my loneliness just increases. I look at her hands, with the fingers now twisted by age and I remember her stroking my hair, as a child... just as I remember my grandfather's hands petting my shoulders and telling me not to worry, because after a storm only good weather can come. Their hands made me what I am today, or at least what's good in me, and without their touch the world is an emptier place.
One can say that I have my parents, so I should not be that affected... old people die and this is the law of nature. It's true, but they WERE my parents... and I don't have a family of my own to compensate their loss. I will be left with my mother and ... oh well, this would be it. I can only smirk at this idea... if I am asked how is my mother, I generally shrug. I do not know what to say... and when it comes to her, I try not to blame her too hard. However, I was thinking lately that it's not fair... I save her image against my own sanity. How fair can this be?
I look back to my childhood and I see no love coming from her. Just weakness and irresponsibility to her own (undesired, in all honesty) offspring. And to her life, if we are at it, but this is not my problem. She stayed in a marriage of constant arguing and abuse... and fine, if she didn't care about herself I cannot blame her. But she seemed too blind to figure out that their marriage messed me up completely... and that once you have a child, this becomes your main responsibility. Both of my parents were actually too busy caring for themselves to notice they have some duties... and too preoccupied with their own dramas to be able to love anything or anyone other than themselves.
For a long while I looked at this ironically and I talked about it with bitter cynicism. But lately... looking at myself, I can't do that anymore. I see my own insecurity, my lack of points of reference when it comes to defining what I want to do with my life... all those things that I needed to figure out by myself because they failed to provide me with... and I can only look back in anger.
Sometimes, being angry is what helps you move on. And as they say... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Who cares about the scars anyway?
I do.
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