COLLAB: no
COLLAB:yes
Counting by NBK - frames
Curled tempaltes from Seasons in the Sun by NBK
Feeling a tad bit philosophical today... and out of this mood a two-pager was born. This is the right side. Journaling reads - I am a qeen of typos, so don't judge me, this will be proof-read and re-proof-read multiple times:
When I was about 14 I heard someone on the radio say the reason why people have more than one child is because if something were to happen to one, they would have others. The idea horrified me, but when I mentioned it to my mom, she nodded and said - matter-of-factly - that she shared the sentiment. I was stunned. Being the eldest, I interpreted it like she actually expected something to happen to me. By the age of 19 I had learned that my parents were not the infallible super humans I had thought they were, and accepting that my mother can be wrong was one of the greatest disappointments of my life that marked my coming of age. Over the years, there would be countless disagreements and bitter encounters, on all things big and small, and yet nothing would be big enough to drive us apart. The mother-daughter bond we forged together - the foundations lain by my mom, the brick and mortar provided by both and the supporting scaffolding put in place later in life by me, - this bond is sacred. She would never have another daughter, and I would never have a different mother. It would take me 30 years and two children of my own to grasp what she had meant that day.
I now have a daughter who often thinks I am wrong and who, upon hearing my story of why people have children, was just as horrified as I had been all those years back. We talk and we argue, much like my mother and I did. And just like my mother, I sometimes struggle to find the delicate balance between giving my daughter wings and grounding her with roots. I too make mistakes. And I too work tirelessly laying and securing the foundations of our mother-daughter bond. Because if there is one thing my mother has taught me, is that most things in life will become water under the bridge, and that blood runs thicker than water.
