Babe I wanna write a letter.
To who?
My mother.
She’s right there in the house with you.
I know. I want to write a letter that she’ll never read. But I’m sharing it with you.
Okay…
Mum,
I know you are scared of dying. I know there are many deteriorations happening with your body. I know you’re feeling lost, sad, and frustrated with your life and how it’s unfolding — and I know Dad isn’t emotionally helping either.
I know you have no interest in Soul Mates or Twin Flames. You don’t believe it for yourself. I’m not sure if you ever did.
I don’t know “why” you married my father — was it obligation? Was it a karmic debt?
I know neither of you set the example for me to learn what true love is. Instead you gave me fear, worries and hesitations when my real love appeared.
Fernando and I have suffered decades apart in this life and we’re still suffering. As much as it is beautiful and happy and wonderful to realise — now — he’s the One for me. And I am no longer afraid — and I know I’m an adult, and I was an “adult” back then — I still existed in the fog that you and Dad created.
I’m not trying to be cold to you these days. I’m not trying to be difficult. But my heart is elsewhere. My heart is with Fernando. And I’m waiting to be married to him. I’m waiting to leave this family. I’m waiting to let go of my maiden name.
You and Dad had provided everything that was needed and more — for a physically comfortable upbringing. I can’t complain there. I never went hungry. Only my emotional body — starving for any examples of true and real love; let alone a safe space for intimacy.
Our house wasn’t warm like in those TV families. I feel like we simply coexisted.
You answered my questions to the best of your abilities — maybe that is how it is for me now, these days, with your aging body.
I’m not a doctor.
Were you a qualified mother?
Could there have been such a qualification to be obtained?
You’ve read many, many Buddhist books over your lifetime. You wanted to pass them down to us. You wanted to share the Dharma — have you lived it?
Instead of reading, have you tried breathing?
I know you’ve been in meditation camps. I am probably most grateful for you even taking me with you to some meditation sessions with the monks. But I did not ask to be born as a monk or nun in training.
And, these recent years, I’ve had more knowledge, more awareness of your childhood and other stories — which makes me wonder, genuinely, how much religion became your escape from other realities.
I cannot care as deeply for you about all these things as a real Soul Mate or Twin Flame would. If I had the same stories to share with Fernando, he would listen to my every word, he would figure these things out with me.
Somehow, you and Dad never established that kind of emotional closeness in your marriage. And I’m not qualified to psychoanalyse that for you two either.
I know now, that I did not grow up with examples of love in my family surroundings. Not you, Dad, or either set of grandparents — not even the Aunties and Uncles — none of y’all embodied real love.
Maybe it was all blinded obligations. From ancient expectations.
Real love is possible. It’s not just in Western movies. It’s not something that only exists in dreams and fantasies.
One thing you did pass down to me, mixed with Dad, I suppose, is my face that Fernando loves dearly.
Perhaps it was lust for you and Dad. Perhaps it was evolution — make some good looking babies. My brother and I turned out, I guess, in aesthetically socially celebrated ways. People think we are good looking. Generally speaking I would also agree. So you did that right, you and Dad. The physical bodies.
Always it seems our family succeeded with the needs and requirements of the lower chakras. The root chakra. The need for survival. You always react like we are in a fight or flight.
It’s such heightened tensions for a nervous system — perhaps — things would’ve been different if you had been prescribed anti-anxiety medication decades ago. I am only thinking about that now because of how many years I’m reflecting upon as I write.
Maybe you tried meditation instead of medication. But it never carried into our daily life moments. You still snap when triggered. It’s in you. The Demon. The Monster. Everything you can’t stand about Grandpa, Grandma, the Aunties and Uncles — you react the same.
You tried to mould me into a Graceful lady and with the help of qualified teachers, there was some residual effects.
But Fernando never loved me for only that. He loves all of me. When I have my gracefulness and when I’m being silly and relaxed and swearing about all sorts of things. He loves me when I’m me. And I’m never not me, so he loves me at all times.
Your biggest forewarning. The greatest fear you instilled in me as a teenage girl: “I lost myself when I married your father” — do not lose yourself for a man.
Is that even ethical to put that on a teenage emotional mind?
I don’t know why your body is exuding so many physical symptoms these days. The doctors have prescribed the medications that you are now questioning. I’m not a biochemical researcher, my dear Mama.
I don’t have those answers to your questions. And I think it is more filial to be honest to you that this is outside the scope of my current knowledge, than to attempt to console you in any way.
Maybe I wish that you would have recognised the same in yourself — back then.
When I first told you about Fernando — if only you could have recognised, “It does sound like. You believe you are in love. Well. I’ve never been in love. This is outside the scope of what I can help you with. My daughter.”
Of course I know that is not words you would have ever uttered in those moments. But here I am writing this letter because… well… I think it would’ve created a healthier boundary for our mother-daughter relationship.
Virgo Sun Pisces Moon 