From me, to me

My first memory of you is of a very independent little girl. You looked like the very young actress featured in Poltergeist with your long white hair. I would say pony tail but I distinctly remember you hating pony tails.

You were about five years old and I found you sitting in front of your bedroom window. Fluffy white clouds covered the sheer curtain and ballerinas danced their way across the bedding. You were sitting on a makeshift cot your dad had made for your dolls, staring out the window. The rest of the house was quiet and you could hear a pin drop.

“Where are we when we are not here?” you asked. Nobody gave you the answer because you were talking to yourself as you often did and so very many questions followed over the years. The majority related to existentialism and other things that were none of your business.

At your tender age you took control of situations so much bigger than you. I remember you being advisor to your troubled mother from a very early age. You had so much courage and so many convictions. Very little scared you. You woke up every morning and waited for the housekeeper to approach, carrying a tray with tea and coffee. You smiled and waved quickly before she disappeared at the foot of your bed – into thin air. You were a strange kid indeed.

I also remember you being more cynical than made me comfortable. So often, people would comment on your maturity and bluntly ask why you smiled so little. You didn’t care for cartoons or games. You wanted to read and learn how to write because you had so much you needed to know and say. You preferred watching real people living their lives over Alice in Wonderland and Heidi. You were intense and experienced everything in overdrive. When you were mad, you were beside yourself. When you were excited, you couldn’t be contained. When you were sad, you were inconsolable.

You had such high expectations of people and as a result you were left disappointed and over time you were tainted. Your circle was so small and your mother became your entire universe. You placed her on a pedestal and admired her. You kept watch by her feet and growled at anyone that came to close. Your only escape was reading and making up stories in your mind. If you didn’t like the real world, you escaped to the one where you created reality.

High school came with its own set of challenges. Let’s just admit it – you were different. You didn’t quite fit in anywhere, did you? You were not quite clever enough to fit in with the dorky crowd and you were too dorky to fit in with the cool crowd. You were angry man. So angry. You didn’t have everything the other teenagers had and even more frustrating was the fact that you didn’t even want everything they wanted. You didn’t understand them and they didn’t understand you. You kept your circle small again and soldiered on.

You were always so sure of yourself. You knew what you wanted at all times, and at that time, it was to go to varsity. Varsity represented a door – the door to freedom. You convinced yourself that you really wanted nothing more than to step over that threshold. Unfortunately, nothing ever came easy for you. You had to do it the hard way. You had to find a job and earn some money so that you could work toward financing your own part time studies. By the time your friends had jobs, expensive cars, husbands and two-point-four children, you tumbled out of the closet.

With the newfound freedom of being true to yourself, you started studying. You were earning a minimum wage and buying text books while they were living in mansions and buying nappies. While they were building families, you were tearing down walls around your heart. You understood that happiness was like a fetus – it grows inside until it’s ready to be born to the rest of the world. Years of hard work followed. You had to revisit those convictions. You had to learn to tolerate, accept, forgive, trust, and adjust.

Today is your birthday and I thought I’d thank you.

Thank you for never giving up on us. Thank you for accepting our fate – we had to work harder than most. Thank you for keeping all of our dreams alive and for still coming up with new ones. Thank you for learning to be giving, forgiving and tolerant. Thank you for understanding that we are a work in progress and for the courage to always want to be better. Thank you for allowing us to escape the prison of expectation and for allowing us to reach new heights by being open to everything that this life has in store for us. Thank you for knowing that the world is a pool of opportunity and for always finding ways to love more deeply. Thank you for giving us a break more often and allowing us to be vulnerable when we need to be.

I come bearing gifts. I’ve wrapped it in layers of patience and understanding.

Look! It’s self-awareness!

Happy birthday.