My mother has paranoid schizophrenia. Growing up, we didn’t know these words, we didn’t even know there was a problem bigger than her “mood”. She was a very motherly mother, so we spoke to each other, and shared feelings. A side-effect of which, among other things, was that the paranoid thought cycle passed into me. This means so many things, but this post is particularly about the artificial scarcity that created in my mind of opportunity, hope, happiness, and normalcy. I know 20 years later that it is artificial, then-till…now it was my reality.
You will never go to a good school.
You won’t find love.
You will be lonely. No one will like you.
It was destined so. I was too frail & illiterate to question Destiny.
And like any self-fulfilling prophecy, it fulfilled itself. I was bullied at every new school. I never made friends. I decided to stay away from love. Till later in life, too late some would say, mysteriously, good things happened. The nicest boy fell in love with me. I went to a beautiful college. I made friends who protected, scolded, and kept me warm. I learned childhood concepts at 18. I was furiously, unapologetically happy. I was living very fast and very much. All potential energy of the scarcity turned to the kinetic energy of insecure happiness. The force of insecure happiness you cannot fathom. I refused to sleep more than necessary lest I wasted the fleeting hours.
Cut-to today: Let’s say I have worked on my insecurity and walk through life as if I own it. Mummy is on medication that keeps life more or less stably whatever-it-is. It puts me in a reminiscing mood every once in a while, my tattoos stand witness to that, as does this post.
Today, I am giggling furiously. Mummy came back after 15 days at some camp. She isn’t allowed to talk all day today. So she is miming:
Make your bed.
Drink milk.
Along with what could-have-waited-a-day-to-be-discussed: I can’t find the ball. I threw it at the window, it did not go out, but I can’t find it.
Why aren’t you working on the p-o-r-tfolio?
Maushi and I tease her; papa tells us to not tempt her to talk.
The peaceful ratchet of routine is restored and I am furiously happy. That part gets to stay.