We were taking the clothes out of the dryer again. She used to let me help because I liked to. As she stooped to retrieve our garments, she resembled a wilting flower. She was beautiful but she was beginning to droop a bit, no longer the robust mother I remembered. I couldn't remember when exactly she began to look so weathered.
"You going to help me or not?" She clucked sharply. She didn't yell as much as she used to. She just liked to remind me she can.
While folding the clothes, I glanced toward the paintings on the wall. She followed my eyes and quickly returned to her task. Her brow was furrowed, she just wanted to do the laundry.
"Mommy, you ever going to paint again?" I asked.
"I don't know. ...No time." She mumbled as she looked longingly at her artwork displayed on our wall.
This time she stopped folding. She didn't want to fold anymore. She wanted to look at her pictures. Pictures of regal women, tropical paradises, and tranquil streams. I looked at her. My mother, the wilting flower.
She looked at me and smiled. I didn't know at the time that that was the smile you got when someone admits defeat. That was the smile you get when you know you had a season and it was over.It was the grin of resignation. She knew she was never going to paint again. She knew she was a wilting flower. At the time I didn't know. I knew she wasn't the same, but I didn't know she was different. I never knew she gave up, because she never gave up on me. As a child you only pay attention to the love and care you need.
When you're a child, mother's can't wilt...but they do.
When started dating after separation, I did it in phases. The first phase was catch up. I wanted to catch up with every man I had a spark with to explore where it would have went had I not gotten married. Once I realized that these "what if's" were really "don't bother's" I moved on to try to find "the one." After several failed attempts and false starts with "the one" I began making rules. I didn't always know what I liked but I was certain after several failed relationships of what I didnt. However, now that I look back, I realize that plenty of the red flags that made me run were almost always a shared similarity with my ex. If a man said he was interested in anything my ex was interested in, I began to feel uneasy and delve deeper for more "flags". I'll even admit that if a man were from the same country or continent as my ex, I would get turned off. I now know that I was suffering from PTRD (Post Traumatic Re...
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