You Exist Too Much

by Zaina Arafat

In acquiring my gender, I had become offensive.

Worse than anger was indifference: her approval was my compass, even when that meant resisting it.

If my mother was Hamas—unpredictable, impulsive, and frustrated at being stifled—my father was Israel. He’d refuse to meet her most basic needs until she exploded. Then he would point at her and cry, “Look at what a monster she is, what a terror!” But never once did he consider why she had resorted to such extreme tactics, or his role in the matter.

“I can’t believe I’m still trying to protect my image of you.” My voice was an octave higher and quivering like a frightened bunny. “You have taken my weaknesses, insecurities, and confessions and used them all against me.” My hands were shaking, I could barely read what I had written. “I won’t ever let you near my heart again,” I said, and I threw my notebook across the floor as if it were on fire.

We are operating in accordance with a universal law dictating that whoever marries first can permissibly subject the other to indentured servitude vis-à-vis maid of honor duties, and expect enthusiastic, unfaltering compliance in return.

“Get out,” I say, with difficulty.

For a long time, I’ve imagined telling her that I want everything she’s wanted me to pursue—a marriage, children, a lucrative career. But growing up in her house, subjected to her erratic rages, I didn’t have the energy. I was exhausted just trying to survive.

I still think of her more than I should, more than she likely thinks of me, but distance is helping. Quitting social media helps. And the possibility of someone else helps, too.

She wants me to react emotionally, like a child, and that’s when I get into trouble. I look at her and try to respond flatly.

Until now, it’s never occurred to me that my mother was—my mother is—a child, forever stunted by her own traumas.

I am lost in my mother’s possibility, in what could’ve been, caught between her frustrated potential and a desire to fulfill my own.

In receiving love from others, it will always be hers I crave most.