Some time back, J needed to fly very early one Monday morning for a business trip. I spent a completely sleepless night worrying about her being alone in her Uber on the way to the airport at 3 am. At times like this, I can forget that she is a grown woman, living independently for a while and capable of taking care of herself. All night long, I had images from J's childhood flash through my restless mind that could not fall asleep even though I was tired. I was anxious for her with the same intensity as when she was a child. Once she texted me from the airport a little past 4 am, I finally dozed off. In the life of every mother there are many such nights and you want them to end so you can sleep a bit. I take great care not to bring any of this up with J. The worries might not be unwarranted but there is no way for her to make them go away for me. They can only create mental constraints for her, break her stride.
Thinking back, I am following in my mother's footsteps - she too never talked about her worries about me until well after the fact when it had almost no bite left. This is probably how we mothers in the family have tried to liberate our daughters to be free to do what they need to do. My mother's horizons have always been far more limited than mine for good reason and that translates into her tolerances - what is the point at which she would start to worry about my well-being. The figurative lakshman rekha for me at J's age had a much smaller radius than the one I have for J. We are achieving degrees of freedom, giving the next generation of women more room to breathe and be - permission to make mistakes and recover from them. Reading this rather brutal poem on a related topic brought my sleepless night to mind
Comments