Her new room is too cold, too quiet … the silence pierced only by the whistle of trains which is incessant. Everything is strange and uncomfortable and screeches with wild dangerous possibility.
The first night in her new place, all is rich with possibility and heavy with responsibility and she wonders, incessantly, if she will overcome. As that ugly and bearded fear swirls in her head it is met, over and over again, with the certainty that she will.
Tasked with adulthood she’s taking the steps, one and at time, placing each foot firmly and then lifting it and placing more hesitantly, testing the path ahead of her. She sniffs the air that doesn’t smell like any home she’s known and there is pain at the foreign and wonder at the strange.
What will she make of herself? How will she wake tomorrow in this strange place where nothing is certain? What step will she navigate next and how will she be judged for how she walks?
Meanwhile … hundreds of miles away there is a mother who smiles small-ish through tears and wonders how she will be judged for the world she’s created. A mother who sits quietly, unable to play Skyrim without an ache for her child’s voice, bossing and teaching and laughing. A mother who feels every firm step and every hesitation with the flinch of someone who has no control over the pain each movement may cause.
This one is tasked with balancing the loss with the gain, embracing the hurt of an end with a confidence that all will be well … knowing that things are not always well … fearing that her knowing is enough to ruin things.
These two, so very different, wrapped in this dance of loss and love, a tango of control and submission, a sway of hurt and pride.
The daughter looks to her cracked ceiling and sighs, tears wetting her hair and pillow. ‘I love you mom.’
‘I love you sweetheart. You’ve got this.’ And to herself ‘She’s strong and brave and good. She will be okay.’
‘I will be okay’
Restlessly and silently they speak to each other throughout the night. Offering reassurances and hopes, warming to the notion that ‘normal’ is a long way off, but it is there – on the horizon of a later day.
‘I am the captain now’ she mutters, dozing and laughing. ‘Look at me.’
Who am I drinking? 