Old patterns, familiar doorways

Time rewinds

2019 - last visit in Berlin

Post scheduling works wonder, staging life when there is none. I haven’t touched my Substack account for a month now, managing to just read a couple of comments to my posts.

I planned to work on some writing at the beginning of April, when I was visiting my mother in Italy for a couple of weeks. I obviously was delusional. I wonder by what law of the universe I split into two personality the moment I step over the threshold of my mother’s flat. I am no longer the grown-up with enough life experience to handle difficult situations. Instead, a gloomy teenager seems to resurge from the void and fight to take control of my being. Long gone automatic responses break out free from the recesses of my soul, triggered by my mother’s old and known behavior. Ignore the rational notion of knowing her character inside out. Forget any drop of understanding for her failing mental and physical health. Turn your back at everything you learned about being curious and open. You are again 19.

I was that age when I finally left home, after several difficult years where sulkiness and a certain degree of mutism were my weapons of choice to protect myself from violence which could come at any time, for a word, for a thought. It doesn’t matter that with hindsight it was not as bad. I felt it that way.

My father did not drink. He did not gamble. He worked hard and brought all the money home. Hits were in the end seldom. But the constant fear, the climate of terror, my inability to accept that as normal, made me hate living at home.

Time passes by, I grow up, my parents grow old. Despite some hiccups along the way, age and distance allow for a more amicable relationship. Growing out of emotional childhood, I can clearly see the monsters my parents were confronted with. They were not mine, nor it’s my responsibility to fight them (whether my parents or their monsters). My father’s departure in 2020 breaks my heart.

Learning about life and about me has been so far a great journey and it is not over yet. I am still looking forward to discovering new talents and exploring new ways to expand.

And yet. One step into the door and my balance is lost. On my mother’s sleeping couch my life is on hold, as if it did not dare go on in the company of that ugly teenager, who sometimes plays the grown-up. A hidden rage, which I unconsciously hide, takes me by surprise. I thought I worked through that already.

Each visit feels like a failure, a default on my own self. Sometimes the sailing is smoother than others, but I am never in control. Either my mom or my teenager self seem to hold the wheel. My other self is sleeping in the back of the car.

Despite all this, I dread the approaching end. I know it will hit me in the face as strong as a forceful slap from my father, leaving his handprint on my cheek.

My mother, the perpetrator of so much unconscious emotional blackmail, will leave me alone in the world, my mind lighter, my pockets heavier, and a huge hole in my heart.