letters to the past #1

I had some passport photos taken this week, for my EU residence permit, and although washed out and sepia toned, (what was that passport photo-taking boy thinking), my face, thinner now, looks just like yours. I remember you at 34, Mom. I was born when you were 21 so when I was in my second year of high school you were 34. I can't put it all together though, my memory is flawed. I remember the sunglasses, the pins in your mouth when you were sewing. I can remember you being impatient and saying 'mmm' a lot to my incessant babbling about completely irrelevant bullshit. Now I say 'mmm' a lot to everyone. Especially when I'm driving. I remember how you used to love to lie on the couch and read a book and how Dad thought it was a waste of time. God, I'm so glad I had your example of how to lose yourself in a book. I'm about to go and do just that in a few minutes.

I remember when I was in high school I asked you once about routine. I said, 'Mom, doesn't it drive you crazy to have to do the same things every day, the organising of breakfast lunch and dinner, the driving, the relentless monotony of it all?' and you laughed softly at me and said 'Well, without those things we would have no structure to our lives would we?' Now I'm 34 and I baulk at the structure of it all. I wonder now if you felt the same way as I do?

We talked about this earlier this week and you told me, 'you know, since I've been single the best thing is that I can do whatever I want when I want. I have to account to no-one else.'  When I consider that in context with you at my age, I think you actually have what you want now, despite the struggle of the years in between.

We never really hugged or kissed a lot, did we? I know I'm guilty of the same thing with my boys. Simple affection doesn't come easily to me, I'm all stiff and held back, until I'm with someone who can get through that, then all this need to be touched just comes pouring out. It's strange really, a lifetime of suppressed affection waiting for the right moment, the right person, the stars to align, to tumble out of me into the rest of my life. How does one change that? I remember lying in bed in your room though early in the morning, you were always so warm and soft, hips and boobs and comfort. When I was about 8 or 9 I remember looking at pictures of Marilyn Monroe and thinking that you were just like her, voluptuous, all mascara and heavy eyelids.

After A was born, I remember you holding her, so easily, while I envied the poise of your movements, the supporting of the head, the changing of the nappy, the practised hold of the ankles, lift of the hips, the wipe, the swooping of the new nappy underneath and the removal of the old one. How you didn't fear that you would stick her with a pin. I had these terrible visions of things that could go wrong with the whole nappy changing scenario. Like that somehow I'd stick one of those pins in her eye by accident. I'd lie in bed awake at night in between feedings (obviously suffering incredibly bad post natal depression) and think about the pin entering her eye, and the screaming and the pain. It paralysed me when I came around to changing the nappies. I had other horrifying scenarios that I would imagine, like that I'd be ironing the clothes and somehow the iron would be in the moses basket across on the other side of the room and she'd be burnt. I was fearful around kettles. Panicky around hot stoves. Even hot food scared me. Then there was the crying. I didn't know what to do with the crying. I just wanted to give her to you and run away.

I never considered how it was for you to be a grandmother at 39.

39 is only five years away from where I am now. How would I feel? I think dismay would be the least of the emotions I'd be able to process, and then thinking 'why is this happening to my child and what did I do wrong to make this happen?'

Lost youth? That too. I'm afraid that if I were told I'd be a grandmother at 39 the first thing I'd be doing was looking in the mirror and considering Botox. Some of my friends are 39 and having their first babies. I try to imagine them being grandmothers at 39? Inconceivable.

I remember telling you when I was pregnant. I'd been avoiding you for days. The phone had rung in the hostel I was staying in and the other girls had called me and said 'Ash, it's your mom on the phone' and I'd made the cut off sign and they'd said I wasn't in. Then one day, probably a week or two later, I was standing by the telephone box and it rang and I picked it up and it was you. The crackle on the line was intense, because it was raining, but as soon as I heard your voice I couldn't keep it in anymore, all that came out was this squeak of 'Mom, I'm pregnant'. I never even thought how you might feel.

I remember you shouted a bit, but I mainly recall the sibilant 'oh Ash' you uttered. You had a peculiar tone of regret and acceptance in your voice, like you knew what would happen next. Of course, it all was incredibly unsuitable, the whole situation was unsuitable. I was headstrong and convinced that this was what my life-path had spelled out for me. Obviously it was because there I was in the middle of it, and my ego had me playing centre-stage, but you tried to stress to me that I should choose carefully, that there were choices other than the traditional ones. At the time you were unhappy, medicating with alcohol, and living a traditional set of choices so I didn't listen at all.

I wonder how different our lives could have been if I had stopped and listened for a moment.