three steps and a lifetime apart
published: 2015-02-14My mother and I casually lean against the kitchen counter. She pours wine, I chop and cut. Sip, lean, chat about this, that and the other.
She offers unasked for advice on how to deal with an issue I’m facing.
Now’s the time, is what I think. Right now.
I’d been holding back on a few personal things in my life, things that might change the way both she and I see the past. I’ve blamed my childhood for a few things and maybe wrongly so. I thought I’d tell her all this one day, during a walk or a trip somewhere or after having announced that ‘we need to talk’.
Not now, though.
Yes, now.
Now I find myself explaining there’s something I’ve been meaning to say, and that I’m not really sure how but may as well. I speak as if we’re still chatting, mainly about other people’s problems. I’m being smart and wise and collected. She watches me and I don’t see anything different in her expression.
There are moments in time when you can choose to change the course of your personal life, these moments last only a few fractions of seconds. You can step into them or stay out.
I stop talking, mid sentence. We feel like a lifetime apart, but she is only three steps away. I take those three steps: one – two – three and press my head against her shoulder.
She puts her arms around me.
And there she is, the mother I need without having realised I do.