ENFP, Actor, Writer, Model, Photographer, and Overall Artist.
Interests: Theatre, Silent Film, Noir, Pantomime, Expressionism, Interpretive Dance, Literature, Surrealism, Philosophy, Psychology, Lifting the veil, Poetry, Shoegaze, Post-Punk, Photography, Visions, Dreams, and Deja vu. Earth Magic and the thrill of the journey. Learning to become a child again, a knowing child.
Having helped raise a girl from six years of age to 12… it’s been an emotional ride. I’ve mostly helped raise boys—and been a great success at it. My mother wounding/female betrayal trauma is so strong that it is making it hard for me to relate to her as a growing person.
I had such a horrible time at her age, and she is becoming the kind of girl I loathed in those times. A mean girl. A popular girl. We were so close when she was little… all those nights staying up late reading Harry Potter together. She was such a lonely, misunderstood child. So imaginative, with a big heart. So tender of feeling. How she would cling to me like she never wanted me to leave. She used to tell me I was the only one who understood her.
Now she dismisses me like an unwanted thing. It’s a part of the age, but it’s so hard. It makes me think of that scene from Toy Story 2 when the little girl leaves Jesse in a box on the side of the road…
When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together
Lives within my heart
And when she was sad
I was there to dry her tears
And when she was happy, so was I
When she loved me
Picking flowers up by twin peaks during the pandemic. Braiding her hair at night after a long day. Doing tarot cards together, going to the little mermaid sing along. Pretending to be mermaids at the children’s quarter playground. Lost among the artificial waves. Climbing them in all their statuesque beauty.
Spending hours making props for her Harry Potter birthday. The brick wall of platform 9 ¾. All the hours of drizzling glue gun glue over paper towel rolls, painted starkly white with electric tea lights to give the illusion of floating candles. Teaching her improv games, taking her to see the theatre. Her ambitions to be an actress just as I was…
Through the summer and the fall
We had each other, that was all
Just she and I together
Like it was meant to be
How she used to tell her parents that she was glad to have me help her through her troubles in life. She would push away her own mother and say she wanted me when she was hurt. She would run into my arms. When I left for Paris for ten days, she chased my Uber down the street crying. She had such a hard time without me being there.
And when she was lonely
I was there to comfort her
And I knew that she loved me
The sleepover parties, the makeovers. The trips to the mall, pin curling her hair for decade day. Lending her my vintage clothes. Sharing all my stories, how hungry she was to listen to them. One day when picked her up from school she said: “I wish you were my mom.”
So the years went by
I stayed the same
But she began to drift away
I was left alone
Still, I waited for the day
When she’d say, “I will always love you”
Taking her to her first school dance. Having her tell me when she first got her period. She told me first that the boy she liked asked to be her boyfriend. I was there when she was bullied at her last school, and was there to see her become popular at her new school. I was glad to see her shine. Just as I knew she was always meant to. How beautiful she is becoming. Such a young lady now.
Days turned into weeks, months, and now years that she has grown distant. This is what happens with children in middle school. I hated middle school so much. It was so traumatic for me. Glad as I am that she is enjoying it, the difference seems to divide us further. We relate less and less.
Lonely and forgotten
Never thought she’d look my way
And she smiled at me and held me
Just like she used to do
Like she loved me
When she loved me
There are moments when she puts her head on my shoulder still. Or randomly asks me to do her hair, or tells me something personal. I miss how close we used to be. I wonder if she will even be sad the day that I leave.
How awful it feels, to be disposable.
My grandmother said: “she doesn’t show it, but I bet she will fall apart when that day comes.”
I just don’t know…sometimes it all feels like a dream. It went by so fast. I always care more deeply about others, than they care about me. The ultimate agony. I hate feeling like all my love and effort went unappreciated. Not that I give expecting anything in return, but a little gratitude would be nice. Taking on a “motherly” role… makes me realize how thankless of a job motherhood is.
Grieving the loss of that little girl, and realizing that this is a part of life. The cycle goes forward, and as children become autonomous, they let you go and don’t even realize. The empty nest syndrome is real. Having felt it more than once in my life… has made me wonder if having children is in the cards for me. I love kids, and they love me, but they grow into people… and it’s hard to let go of who they were when they were small. It’s so hard for me to detach.
I let her be, I give her space. The silence grows between us with each passing day. Time rots like old wood.
She doesn’t need me anymore.
“I’m always going to need you” she once told me when she was little. I hope in her heart of hearts, that’s still true.
It’s so hard to keep opening my heart to women, just to be abandoned or betrayed by them. The wound just grows deeper as I age. In spite of my active resistance. I know she is just a child. I would never put this on her, but tonight I feel sad about all of this. The purge was necessary.
One of the best documentaries on Sylvia Plath I’ve ever seen/listened to. It feels very personal. Sylvia had been a fascination of mine since I was a teenager. Her fierce passion and surgical precision in terms of insight. I think any woman with betrayal trauma can relate to her story. Sylvia’s brilliance is unmatched. Her poetry greatly influenced my own writing as a young person. It’s a shame she chose to die…she had so much more to share with the world.
