Ten (Goddess – 12.07.2022)

I have seen my mother be too much. She speaks too much, fights too much, survives too much, and that’s why the society gives her too much. Too much trouble and too much respect, all together in a mish-mash, making her more an enigma than a single mother.

My mother has her individuality and personhood. She, like every other person, takes wrong decisions and right. She loves to create – paintings, paper crafts, jewellery, accessories, you name it. She is a woman of calibre, her success snatched from her by this society where animals pose as men and exist in the marriageable community. Groomed to be the best bride, ie. the meekest and the most submissive ever, she faced a lot of violence in her married years.

The story starts here. Trauma can never have more importance than the path of a woman who regained her identity and retained her strength. My mother is a woman of flaws, but I swear no human I have seen even touches the bottom-line of her strength. So, the story of what happens after the trauma goes like this: She raises us up with the support of our grandparents while sacrificing her own personhood in the process. The frustration of sacrificing her individuality falls on her children’s heads as we battle everything too. All three of us end up having a journey with our own roles to play.

When one cannot control big things, one starts to assert dominance over small decisions in order to retain individuality. My mother obviously could not change her life. However, what she was not blessed with was also the coping mechanism that could have helped her fare better. I cannot imagine having survived without my coping mechanisms and the woman was never allowed those in the first place. She had a will forged in fire, though. Even if things could not be arranged because her children were small, even though we don’t have much money because she is a single mother who sacrificed most of her career for a job that gave her time with us, even when she was lonely after trying her best to make friends with people with awareness level far below her, she never shirked from doing all she could do for her children to grow aware, knowledgeable, rightful, and humble. (Yes, people actually praise my brother and I as such.)

My mother is a woman of stamina. She has driven kilometres upon kilometres in scorching sun to reach our school for PT meetings. She has run from post to pillar for our admissions in the city’s best schools. She has run to every single creative class of mine to drop me. She made us fill up diploma forms for arts. She tried to fulfill our needs on her jingle-jingle pockets. Of course, Nana-Nani were her support, but she did a lot alone. If she were a goddess, her sculpture would be of a woman on her scooter, with a to-do list, a pen, a rolling pin, a marksheet, a cheque, a paintbrush, a pair of pliers, a novel, and her heart in eight of her hands. Her hair would be made in a bun and a helmet would be thrown on the ground to signify the irritation cause by it.

But my mother is no goddess. Her sacrifices always took a toll on her. And those toll taxes were paid by her children – I, who tried my best to be as less maintenance as possible, even if I cut back on my own childhood and my brother, who associated much more with our uncle so that he does not burden mom for his desires. I learnt to save money and he learnt to make money. We got beaten up sometimes but we inherited the spirit of fighting from her too. Everything existed in duality and as my mother recognised way early, I struggle a lot with the greys.

Growing up, I worshipped my mother. Did she ask for it? No. But I did it anyway because everyone asked it from me. They treated my mother like a goddess and my mother was only comforted by this treatment. Had she told me that I was allowed to treat her like a mother and not a goddess, I would have understood. She did not. She did not because she was busy getting over her own trauma and being validated and supported by others making her a goddess of sacrifice. So, when my mirage broke, I turned into a classic rebel, hating my mother for all the times she could have protected my childhood. In the end, we both were only victims of trauma afflicted by my biological father, a man.

I suppressed myself for so long trying to be the most helpful daughter to my mother that I broke. I started hating her, calling her “abuser, manipulator” for the fact that my childhood was gone before I could even touch it and all I remembered was trauma over and over. Trauma does this disgusting thing to one’s memories where a child can remember everything and an adult can forget everything. It happened to me.

As my hatred for my mother kept piling, I grew to realise that I had mental disorders too. My mother could not accept it and a series of accusations began. She thought I did it for attention and I hated her for making me carry that animal’s spoilt genes. She thought I was making excuses and I felt betrayed that she did not take me to a psychiatrist even after my suicide attempt. We both could have handled things better. I tried to hold her accountable for bringing me into this world in the house of an animal without understanding that she had already been paying for that decision with her career, dreams, and individuality. She tried to make me understand of her sacrifices and trauma repeatedly without understanding the extent of my trauma and disorders. I was forced to act like I was not disabled when I was and developed another disorder from that while she has not yet gotten checked yet.

Mother sent me to vipassana to meditate around 12 hours a day for 10 days on a silence oath while I left because I felt anything would be better than living with her. Best decision ever on both our sides. Vipassana has the power to give one a perspective on their whole existence and my trauma was given perspective by it. I improved as a person, tried to understand my mother, tried to control my bad agitated reactions.

But then something else happened. Once, I had not arranged my clothes for three days and in her anger, she banged our laptop into a vertical fold. I was so scared that I stopped trying to understand her then. Interestingly, my mother kept shut about everything for two months before my CLAT and I ended up in a decent NLU. And I took that silence for her acceptance when it was a help and another sacrifice from her side. She was not satisfied with my results and I broke down because I had dropped two years and tried all I could with my trauma, disorders, environment, and everything else. I could not do more. Yet, she was excited for me in her own way as she made me watch videos of my NLU campus together. There was crying, smiling, disowning, and a lot of stuff that happened. We never partied for my rank because of a death. It still hurts. But someone died and she had to respect the tradition, the said someone being a father-figure to her. She did leave money for me to party though. Her words “I wanted to party too,” came much later. Writing about it, I want to cry and scream at the tragedy our relationship has been all these years. In the end, all I know in my heart is that her intentions have never been bad. Her sacrifices have been too large for me to measure.

She has never once apologized for her hurt she has caused me. She thinks everything inevitable is justified. However, I believe in apologies and this post is my public apology to my mother for all the times I have failed to see the real source of our trauma, a man. A man who lost nothing from hurting my mother and us so much because this world is a patriarchal piece of shit. And yet, it is in this world I dream because my mother taught me to seek knowledge, survive, be a whole person, and strongly hope.

These days, my grandparents are away. We have a loan to apply for but the due-date of my NLU fee-payment is too near. We don’t have the money. My mother has not been hurting me for starting the process late, and I have realised that I only started everything late because I thought mother could never be irresponsible enough to not force me to start the process soon. And that’s how I realised now irresponsible I still am and how much I subtly depend on her for my chores and their deadlines. ADHD is a tricky disorder and my mother is a to-do list goddess with a clutched bun.

….to be continued.