time heals everything, this is not a drill
Time heals everything, not really something I'd usually buy. It sounds like something a life guru, motivational accounts on the internet would say. Which I'm kind of uncomfortable with, since hate is too much of a strong word. Definitely up there on my Top 100 Pet Peeves list-quotes people say with so much certainty when they obviously don't know a thing on how things would turn out. This would, most likely, not make any sense, so if you get what I'm trying to say, thank you, otherwise, that's expected so it's completely okay.
Sometimes, though, these quotes I hate so much manifest themselves right before my eyes. Perhaps this is what makes people keep saying them in the first place? I don't know. Recently, time heals everything made so much sense when I saw my mom waltzed in her ex-husband's family's house and interacted with everyone as if things were not batshit crazy and they did not hate each other to guts back then, about eight years ago or so. I, as a witness of everything that happened during that period, was... you could say, fascinated?
Another thing that triggered me to be quite invested with time heals everything is that-my mom and I, we spent years of my teenage years getting under each other's skin. She's not really the motherly, soft, or the typical stereotypes of a mom. I'm not sure of what metaphor is fitting, but I'd say, tiger? Um, well, you know what I mean. On the other hand, I am not exactly the filial daughter either. Our personalities clash on too many edges, we were complete opposites who can't communicate for shit, a dynamic between a dominant person and a submissive one. At some points she's the last person I want to be like. It was definitely not pretty but I'm glad I forgot almost everything.
Then comes college-it might be that she has found more peace after settling down with a new husband. It might be that she's a little more stable now, that she is finally able to find her ground. It might be that it's my first time living alone. It might be that having distance is actually better for us. Right now, she's like, the first person on the list of People I Emotionally Depend On. She asks about my day, about how I did on tests, things I'm not used to be asked about. How the tables have turned. Ha.
Once I played a game with a group of friends where we ask each other what a name means to each person. A friend had asked what my mom meant to me and I remember answering, a strong one, kinda very cool. "But is she a role model to you?"
At that time, I had answered, "No."
Right now, though, I definitely have a mission to at least be an as cool and as nonchalant mother as my mom. Like. Roasting your own kid? Yeah, that's something my mom would absolutely do--and it's hilarious.
Am I? Being a total sap? About my mother? Is this actually happening?
Please don't let her read this. I'd die.
So. Like. If time can turn a gigantic landscape of rocks into seas into caves into mountain ranges and then back into seas then sure as hell it can mend human relationships--mother and daughter included! Time heals everything, this is not a drill, in this essay i will-
Bandung, October 2018, hoping the wheel won't ever spin again.