Damn, Nonchalant

Never have I ever felt like I was staring at myself from the inside out.

As the reflection becomes clearer, I move closer to it, you don't know it yet but I've been taking notes, studying the synergy, becoming antiquated with the movements that our bodies make, the way our eyes shine, the way our world's collide.

I am in a box, all sides reflecting my face, the beauty , the ugly; I don't always understand the tears, but I always run from my fears.

I love my mom but damn, she is non-nonchalant , this is what I am used to, all the others gave me way more than attention but this , this feels like retention.

I am trying to keep myself from turning everything off and crawling into bed in the dark, I feel like I should be isolated, incubated even, my wounds are showing more than ever and I am getting self conscious.

The water surrenders as it hits my skin, my tears, you can't see them, they camouflage, but the pain, the pain I feel as my knees give up, run through my body and then I hit the tub and find myself off balance.

I feel like I am getting a beating.

Am I my own bully?

As I get dress, I see my reflection on the mirror and I stop, I stare at the hazel eyes staring back; thoughts flying in my head, emotions of worthiness making a statement as I drop my arms to my stomach, unconsciously becoming an army of doubts. Who have I become?

Though non-nonchalant, she has always shown her flames, she is tough, she is strong, she is opinionated, she is the soldier her father raised her to be, and so I became the soldier she needed me to be for her own stability. I never actually got to know myself growing up, and as a young adult I did resent her for it, but as a grown woman, as a mother I can only sympathize, she too had to give up herself to become the version someone else created in their head.

Though she had everything to be her own hero, she molded me to be the one who had everything, she poured expectations after expectations on me, she taught me that success looked a lot like her dreams, but after achieving it all, financial freedom, a place on my own, everything I could ever want, success looks a lot like loneliness; It reminds me of the moments I didn't knock on her bedroom door and I saw her tears falling, I always wondered why she cleaned herself up so quickly; she was lonely: she had flings and became boy crazy, but in those moments it looked very much like the smile she painted on pictures and the passion she poured into situationships were just costumes she wore often.

Have I become my mother?

When I left corporate, I cried so loud, not because I had just liberated myself but because I didn't know how to tell her, that I scattered everything I've worked for on the floor for my own sanity.

I am not sure if she took it well, if she didn't she is a great actress, either way I chicken out from telling her face to face and so when she called I blurted it out as if I needed some sort of reassurance, did I?

I did.

I've always have, ever since I could remember, her blessing has always meant much more to me than anything else, it steams from the cycle of soldiers, from her needing me to be the best version of herself, she was too weak to become. So as I bravely start to uncover these gems inside of me, I cant help but wonder if she had glimpses of them through out the years; like the moment I was getting my clothes ripe off by medics in the E.R after an 18 wheeler truck dragged me down the street, our eyes met and I instantly started to cry, but not any cry, that cry she understood, and she instantly became my hero.

As I free myself from her perception of success, from the pressure of needing to be the one who has it all together, I start to realize just how lucky I've been to be her soldier for as long as I have; she is now happy with someone she has been waiting for her whole life; and I am now free to start my own life, with my own expectations.

XOXO

Lucy