Can you see me?

My brother and I were born in different cities three years apart.. Something about my mother wishing to be with her mother for comfort during her first pregnancy, but then having to be with my father when she had me.

We also grew up in different cities. Three years after having me, they realized that the children didn't fix their marriage. One after the other, blurred memories bring up images of small restaurants outside family courts as my brother and I slept through long custody battles and woke up for lunch when our parents started to pretend again that everything is alright. It's a painful realisation that there were so many ways our lives could have turned out back then and we couldn't understand it enough to have a say in it.

Soon enough, it was decided that my brother would live with my father in his city and I would live with my mother in hers. Sometimes we visited them, sometimes they visited us. For twenty days a year we were a family again. A lot of the other days were just about desparate phone calls from my mother to speak to her son. Maybe a few calls here and there from my father for me.

Living in the bigger city, my mother worked eighteen hours a day to support both of us. I was raised mostly by her parents. I earned pocket money through them by doing chores around the house and earned their affection through unflinching obedience.

Our parents had different ways to showing us their affection when we all came together. But money was a common one. Mom would buy Chi anything he wanted that dad hadn't already bought him. Dad would try to buy me things but somehow, not doing anything for him in return made it harder for me to accept things from him. Mom would treat Chi like a king - he could do whatever he wanted, trouble me as much as he liked, and she would turn a blind eye to all of it. Dad and I would hug for a very long time and sometimes he would carry me in his arms and walk around wherever we were. I felt like the most important person in the world.

Years went by. As I grew older, the hugs grew shorter and the carrying stopped altogether. But Chi troubled me the same and mom unheard me the same. My parents were very different people. Dad had learnt to hold on to what he had more tightly and suppressed his desire to be as involved with me. Maybe it was getting to difficult for him - seeing me more grown each time, without getting to see the process. Mom was convinced that she had me, so she spent a lot of time thinking about what she had to give up instead. I don't blame her. She nurtured us both in her womb for nine months, birthed us both, fed us both. She was emotionally turbulent, as all mothers are when they grieve the child they wish they had more time with.
But that never stopped her from loving me the only way she'd come to know how to love someone around her. She spent an obscene amount of money giving me a fine education, sponsoring my trips around the world with her, and supporting my passion for dance. But over the years I've come to realize that she never really healed from any of the bad things that happened to her in her youth or her marriage. She'd closed herself off entirely. She never spoke about her trauma no matter how comfortable an environment I created. She never cared to hear mine either. I was away from all the people who hurt her. I was privileged and paid for. Nobody would want to hurt the daughter of a famous personality. What trauma could I have? Maybe my trauma lied in all the places she couldn't understand.

At family gatherings, I would often be alienated. The other children didn't play with me because we weren't in touch otherwise. The adults didn't look at me except for when I danced. Everyone would praise my mother's work even though a lot of them never saw it. They rambled on with their questions about Chi. I'd move from room to room looking for ways to be of help because I'd come to see it as the only way of being noticed. And soon, we'd go back home and go to bed without another word of substance. Quite a few times, the same thing happened at home with my grandparents. I couldn't describe how I felt back then because I didn't understand it. But now I can: insignificant; small; distant; unnoticed. I missed my brother too. Not that I had a very strong bond with him, but aside from the bickering and him getting his way most of the time, we had fun sometimes. But I also missed the feeling of having someone's undivided affection. So much so that I'd forgotten the last time I received it.

Maybe when we visit my father, things will be different. It was such obvious logic back then. The way my maternal relatives treated Chi, my paternal relatives would treat me. They would miss me, and ask about me all the time, and give me a lot of affection when I visit. But you cannot expect a ten year old child to know that a person's environment affects their relationships with people. As it turns out, people in bigger cities only connect with their relatives at such gatherings, being completely on their own the rest of the year. But people in smaller cities are different. They're interdependent and always connected. They have strong bonds with each other. Dad and Chi were very important parts of their lives, and I was the estranged daughter of the man they loved, and the woman they saw on television frequently. They would greet dad and Chi with warm hugs and hold their hands when they conversed. Then they would see my mother, the woman they now regretted treating badly, speaking to her with excessive courtesy and unnaturally large smiles. When it was finally my turn: they hugged me for a few seconds, told me how much I've grown, ask me about my future, tell me stories about dad and Chi, gift me things, and then we'd move on to have lunch.

A lot of years, this went on. Eventually, I stopped searching for their affection. I did as many things as I could to either find it on my own or forget that I needed it at all. This involved reading a lot of self help books, dating a lot of men who would starve me of affection the same way so I could recreate childhood trauma again and again, and intoxicating myself frequently. Mom was busy, she couldn't see a change beyond the occasional complaint from my grandparents. Dad had stopped calling. The visits became shorter.

A lot of things changed over the years. Chi moved in with us, became best friends with my abuser. Exceeded me in all the wrong things, and then eventually moved away to a different country. Mom spoke of him everyday. Dad only called when Chi wouldn't answer his phone. I fell in love twice and got my heart broken both times. Made something of my life and then threw it all away.

The pandemic is here. Chi came back. He's still the same person, or maybe he isn't. I don't know him well enough to judge. I'm a lot calmer now, my fire died down. History is repeating itself. Mom treats him like a king, dad comes to me when he can't get through to him. Mom's relatives still talk about him everytime we meet, dad's relatives consider him their lifeline. Nobody acknowledges my trauma and nobody accepts their role in it.
For some reason, I feel intense guilt towards the negativity I've come to associate my brother with. Maybe this is nobody's fault. Maybe this is what I deserved.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

Sometime we must accept and move on. The one that is near, become forgotten. I have four grandchildren. I try to treat each one the same. Very hard. Each of us need more or less. A powerful story written and thank you for sharing the amazing words and your thoughts.
Coyote