Birthday Lessons
T-minus twelve days until my nineteenth birthday, I feel impending doom and anxiety. A year older, a year farther from teenage-ry, and a year closer to adulthood. Usually, I’m pretty okay with things like death and getting older overall (that’s half true, because am I, though?), but when it comes to me, I’m a wreck. I never really imagined my life past the cocoon that is being a teenage girl; filled with fun, life lessons, half-responsibility, and the excitement of a long, full life. As my birthday approaches, I’m also thinking about the kind of woman (and mother) I’d like to be, as well as how I’ll take responsibility for my healing going forward. Quite frankly, I have much to heal from: a senseless car crash claimed the lives of my stepmom and my nine-year old baby brother, and a dad that popped into the lives of my older brother and I periodically. Ultimately, I’ve decided that I don’t want to live in my past anymore. I want to embrace all of the pain and the anger and the heartbreak and the disappointment; give it one tight squeeze before letting it go. Setting it free.
Yesterday, on a car ride out to Queens to find a birthday outfit, my mom asked about the last time I spoke to my father. As always, it came out as a mumbled “I dunno / I don’t remember,” or something along those lines. Then she said something that shocked me: “A two-minute phone conversation wouldn’t hurt sometimes. Honor thy father and mother and thy days shall be long, remember that.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, because she was right. But my pride set in as I followed her statement with a whole bunch of buts. But he wasn’t there for us. But he was never consistent. But Kaelin (my brother) and I could’ve had so much more. She refuted my last statement by saying that we never went without, despite her single motherhood. We always had love, and trips to Great Wolf Lodge, and even Disney World. And she was right. So, I swallowed the lump in my throat once again, and remained silent.
With my nineteenth birthday approaching, one year from twenty, I’ve recognized that ten-year-old Kyla still lives within me. And she’s great; she helps me tap into my childhood imagination and gives me a child-like confidence to do things I’ve only imagined in my head. But she also harbors child-like disappointment and confusion. She isolates at the first sign of perceived danger, but I have to heal child me, so that I can heal adult me; that’s how I see it. And if my mom can forgive and let go, so can I. If she can harbor years of working 2-3 jobs with two children and tuck it away neatly in her heart, so can I. If she can let go of what could’ve, would’ve, and should’ve been, so can I. She is the picture of strength and courage. The courage to be vulnerable and open despite a heart patched up with mismatched pieces of fabric. Vulnerability and love are not usually associated with courage, but to me, loving and being vulnerable in spite of your pain is one of the most courageous things you can do. And I’m going to prove to myself (and to her) that I can and will be courageous enough to forgive. As my mom said in the car yesterday, “Harboring this anger and hurt, will not serve you any longer, you have to let it go.” And I guess every time I pick up the phone for that 120 second conversation with my dad, I’ll be loosening my grip a bit more every time.
At a bakery we stopped in before going home, I spotted a German chocolate cupcake—my dad’s favorite. Heat rose to my cheeks under my mask as disappointment and anger crept up on me, but I decided I would react differently this time. I would do something different this time. I snapped a picture of the cupcake, no caption, and hit send. Not expecting a reply, but as a gesture. A distant, “I’m thinking of you, and I remembered.” Because that’s a start, right?
Ironically, as I finish typing this, my dad just sent me a text: “Happy Easter !!!” And for the first time, I truly feel like I’m letting go…