Separation Anxiety

Tonight is the last night that mum and Josh are here with me in Melbourne, and it's getting quite sad now that I am sitting in my organised new room, with the two of them sleeping so soundly- Josh on the pull out bed and mum on the bed we have been sleeping together the last 3 nights. It's a scene I won't want to forget.

I probably wrote too much about how they've helped my tremendously with the move the last couple of days, but I don't think I've written about how my mother got progressively tired as the days went by because she was constantly worried about my safety, the toilet rolls running out, my laundry, my medication, the luggage, the packing and the cleaning. She was always having these things on her mind, and she never once got angry when she quietly helped to clean my room when I was showering, how she did all my laundry and hung them out to dry in the night and took them in and kept them in the morning. It's all these things that I take for granted and they always go unnoticed until I start doing these things myself, then I realise that all this while, she has been the one that has been doing it for me on the sidelines. Never proclaiming, "it was ME that did this" or "look at how much I'VE done for YOU" 

It's hard for me to really put a mother's love into something that is eloquent and poetic because my mother was never the gentle, soothing, long hair and dresses type of woman. She's someone that is hard for me to fit into a category and write about her. I can only write about her when a moment like this comes up out of nowhere: Where I am sitting at my desk, in my new room, and I hold her hand and thank her for everything that she has done for the last few days and apologized again for the 1000th time for the shit I caused, she shakes my hand and says "no laaaa it's okay, now go and sleep." 

My mother's hands are rough with callouses from the carrying and packing of books as a job, and my mother rarely ever wears a skirt unless it's a special event. Even then, she's always checking with us if she looked good in that skirt and always wondering if she looked a little too fat. My mother is always the woman with the bright red lipstick, and laughs the hardest and loudest with her little wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, denoting that she spent her youth smiling a lot and being as free-spirited as she could be. My mother always cries watching sad shows, and she always hugs a pillow and when we laugh at her, mummy you're seriously not crying at this scene COME ON, she just wipes her tears away and claims that something got into her eyes. 

My mother has a loud voice 

but has the softest heart. 

I've been brought up to have a lot of things cared for me, planned out for me, and a lot of times (sadly) it nurtured a sort of expectation that things have to be done for me. It's a very self-centered way of thinking and it's something that I've been working on changing for a while now. One day, I hope to love so fiercely and protect my loved ones with such intensity like my mother. It must be something, to go to bed every night reminding your daughter about her grocery list she needs to get and fussing over bank stuff right before falling asleep, just in case she forgets. It must be something so big that it cannot be contained. 

That type of love, I cannot give. Yet. 

Tonight I will quietly crawl into my bed and hug my mother to sleep one last time,
until we meet again in 6 months.