“Love Continues On” by Mia O

 

As a child, I could only search for the representation of love that was introduced to me since I was an infant. The expectations of being wedded eternally with commitment and fidelity. Those expectations collaborated with my childish perspective of innocence and trust for my parents' promise, outlined the desires for my future. Naive as I was, there was an invisible pain chained to mother dearest, making their love a broad timeline, never fully consistent and always altering. Perfection and consistency were the lies that I told myself when I went home, and the reality of distance was disregarded when it took hours to travel between each of them. Ignorant and young, I continued to lie to myself, seeing my father as the perfect man and ignoring my own screams that broke the silence of each night as I writhed in hunger and starved right next to him. I saw no problem with this pain. Mother dearest grew weaker as the chains were welded thicker into her heart, and months passed before reconciliation was her only answer to halt the pain. I must have learned from her, for she grew up with the same dismissive depiction of love and marriage, drawing her back to the sorrow and confrontations. Only temporarily mended, she remained like fragile glass for the next 11 years because she only saw her partnership through the eyes of her children. The children always saw mother dearest in arms reach, and father delinquent was often absent from the memories.

Maturing meant recognizing how much our house is not built from devotion, but from tolerance. 17 years of my life and I’ve rarely seen love presented as joyous and meaningful. In my reality, I see the eyes of my father delinquent screaming to run away. Nothing done to act on the unsaid need to leave, but the forsaken feelings he kept for us were obvious. Love didn’t exist in his adolescence, so his concept of love grew to be warped and his knowledge of how to love the family he conceived was limited. About 5 months ago, we opened our home to children who needed a substitute family, resulting in the exemplification of abandonment for mother dearest. For my father, we saw how much love was manifested with the arrival of the children, but the blood within the original clan quickly evaporated and meant nothing. Emotionally neglected, mother dearest saw her dreams exactly 1,676.6 miles away from this synthetic home. She expressed these desires when she was at her weakest, pleading for how deeply she wanted to be with the family that appreciates her. She still envisions her children surrounding her for her strongest moments, far away from the chains of pain and even farther away from my father.

I question how after 20 years, this pair of perfectly poignant people have lived under the same last name. After deeper deliberations, mother dearest conveyed how she’s simply waiting. Frigid like the emptiness in space, she waits for certain ends to start new beginnings. What does that even mean? Ignorant and young, I realize that I have to leave school behind me in order for her to leave, but not alone. An unspoken pact was made: when we’re ready, we go.

Slow down. What about me? For years, I have made a separate family out of promises and love, not blood but bona fide companions. Distance from them means corruption and is preventable, but costly. What happens if we stay? I felt like the power of possibilities were in my hands, but I am forever ignorant and young to the promise that conceived me. We’re now in October and the days drift with no argument or answers from myself on our journey ahead, because I decided to wait on the choice.

Suddenly November brought change when the father delinquent offered mother dearest luxuries meant to temporarily satisfy and mask the imitation of his love. The offer was accepted and years of desperation from my mother seemed to disappear, and I became perplexed by how much of our dignity was wasted on these nonessentials. Emotionally abandoned, my past lingers, desperately craves attention, fixation, and answers to when our family will be together for the right reasons. There’s about 20 minutes in each day where there isn’t a restraint in my father’s demeanor, similar to the 20 years of promises unkept. At the end of the 20 minutes, he detaches from us taking his warmth and consolation. In these moments my heart cannot help but miss him so much.

I recognized wholehearted consistency in myself and in my trauma. Falling and failing, with not one slight sensation of healing, but always finding myself in new phases of discovery. Regularly enclosed by my feelings, love feels uncomfortable, but love continues on, as it always has. These days, I learn how to love significantly and when it is deserved. So I’m proud to say that I love them and that my life is so fulfilling sharing this last name.