Filed under: Uncategorized
Like a baby navigating the world, every time Deenie reached for something, her mother jumped up to intervene. Her mother was afraid of everything, and had reason to be. In her experience, there were many things that could hurt you, and many ways to make everything fall apart. So she protected her child, and she protected herself, because the way that her dreamy daughter talked, from a very young age, shook her mother’s world in a way that made her uncomfortable.
She never let Deenie dream too much, or reach too high. When Deenie talked about college, she told her to be practical and think instead of a husband. When Deenie and her husband talked about traveling, her mother talked about disease. When Deenie had children and talked about a quiet life in the country, she talked about needing doctors and hospitals, and family nearby.
And when Deenie asked about her father, she told her that she was better off without him …that he would trick her into thinking that she was loved, and then hurt her. She told Deenie that it was best to close that door and forget about him.
Neither of them ever spoke about him again, but neither of them would ever forget about him.
And to Deenie, behind every word was “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You haven’t thought this through.”
“You’re not smart enough. You’re not strong enough. You can’t handle this.“
With her best intentions, she squashed and suffocated every dream her daughter ever had, until her daughter forgot how to dream.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
