Her Mother’s Daughter

I am my mother’s daughter. Do you know what that means?

It means that I have spent countless moments wondering if she liked me. If she might have been the one who birthed me. It means I spent numerous days comparing myself to her and all the ways I hope never to be like her. The things she taught me to instantly disdain were her high-pitched voice and the sound that I heard my father say was nagging. It was called a troublesome woman.

I am my mother’s daughter, which means that I model myself to be just the opposite of everything I think she is. She talks loudly, I speak softly and with a deeper timbre to my voice. Remember, the goal is to skip the version of her that may have been passed on with my genetics, to fight against all odds, whatever I received by force from the bloodline.

As my mother’s daughter, I watched her love my brothers differently, with lesser expectations, with more pampering, which I will call empathy. while all I had from her were great expectations. A reminder of how I was failing in my duties as a woman. You see, a woman can never be weak, even though she is supposedly the weaker vessel. She spends years honing her suffering quotient because she is going to need it in a lot of phases, but do you know who her first teacher is? You guessed right, it is her mother. Don’t blame the mom; she was handed the baton by her mother. This thing is an ancestral something passed down from generation to generation, a school of “womaning” but with a credible dash of suffering.

I am my mother’s daughter, which means I watched myself become her.

It means I ate her fears and made it a part of my journey. Now I am here at the point my mother found womanhood, and then I realise something that has always been missing in my viewpoint, the strength that I will come to inherit. Forged by aeons of women in my ancestry. The cries and echoes of frustration, the thudding constant drum of being unloved and crying out for help, but nobody hears. Drowning in normalcy because she never learnt to find her spark.

As my mother’s daughter, I finally heard her scream, her silent rage. Years spent in the school of strength, not because she wishes to, but because she has to. I finally discovered intimately what it meant to be so misunderstood that you perfect the mask of indifference.

I am my mother’s daughter, which means now I cry to because I cannot hide from the bloodline, the very blood runs through my veins that made all the mothers before me stand in the face of sacrifice, that made them soar despite the unappreciated thankless task of holding it together for years and years till they finally dissolved into a default that never seeks.

I am my mother’s daughter because now I know the dance, the beat has been inside me all along. When I thought I was running, I was merely rehearsing for the stage that I am to grace. I am here now, the ovation is silent.

I have eyes watching me, seeing eyes, eyes that I see myself reflected in, because we are all a part of the same source. They are watching, knowing that I cannot escape the prison of my calling, but wondering what I will do differently to reduce the weight of the strength that has been passed down.

It is not that it will get easier; it is that the strength is looking for freedom. Freedom to unleash into softness, into also being helped, pampered, cared for, sacrificed for. To no longer keep being the one who is battered. To no longer have her strength wielded as a shield of offence and defence. To no longer mask tiredness behind all the hiding.

I am my mother’s daughter, which means that I have to find time to be happy, not just strong.

Xoxo,

Her mother’s daughter.