raviefm

[raviefm]

“Being independent at this age is a good thing.”

“I want a daughter as independent as you.”

BUT

“You grew up too fast.”

“Is your childhood even considered a childhood?”

Being independent at 16 is a good thing. Making your own decisions. Learning how to navigate the world. Planning a path for the future.

But always people fail to take into account that I started becoming independent at 8 not 16.

My mother stopped bothering to take care of me when I was 8. I survived on take out constantly. I went to school on my own while I watched my friends get sent off by their parents, silently wishing I was them. I listened as my friends went on and on about their parents. I had nothing to say during those conversations. Never had, never will.

9 was the age when I started travelling on my own. I would travel to wherever my mother asked me to, running errands on her behalf and meeting up w her. I started to envy my friends whose parents were always there for them no matter what. Their parents were there when it was hard, when it was easy, when it was not needed. Their parents were there for them every step of the way.

10 was the age when the scolding started. Harsh words were thrown at me with no mercy. I sat through hour-long “lectures” of my mother lamenting about her life, her bad choices and everything else in between. In my mother��s eyes, I was not a child who needed protection. I was already independent after all. The chore of cleaning the house fell on my shoulders, along with doing the laundry and preparing the food. “Practice,” she said. “You will need it for when I am gone.”

11 was the age I applied to every competition, every programme and every award possible. I wanted recognition. I wanted some sort of sign that I was something to my mother. But no matter how well I performed, how many awards I won and how many exams I excelled at, she was never there. She was not there when I received certificate after certificate. She was not there when I won prize after prize. Eventually, I did get my recognition from her, in the most negative way possible. I was simply a nuisance. Always had been.

12 was the age when I had to take a major exam. I studied day and night. Sleeping at 3-4am became the norm for me. My friends did not understand why I was pushing myself so much. They watched me push myself to the breaking point and over it. They watched as I broke again and again yet somehow always pieced myself back together. For every single exam, I walked into the exam hall, exhausted and burnt out, running on less than 4 hours of sleep. When the collection date for the results arrived, I watched as my classmates celebrated with their parents their family. Meanwhile, I was alone and so very painstakingly aware of the fact that my mother was free, she simply did not bother to come. That night, I was scolded and beaten for not scoring better grades despite scoring one of the best results in the class. But of course my mother was unaware, she was not there. She never was.

I started becoming independent when I was 8. Yet at 16, it still hurts as bad as ever, when my family is absent for one of the most important moments of my life.

Independence is a hard lesson to learn. For every lesson learnt, a price will have to be paid. In my case, the price for my independence was the loss of my childhood.