#mommytude
detachment or on the awesome power of sleepover
They decided, we have to commit ourselves to that promise.
The promise of having their first ever sleepover together.
It sounds like a strange couple, the two of them.
One tall, the other one low, as Gulliver with one Lilliputian.
One with long chestnut colour hair, the other one with short tawny hair.
One living at the fourth floor, the other one living at the third floor in the same building.
One, ten years old, the other seven years old.
The perfect match to start a story of friendship.
So they shared this common vision for their little lives: having the chance to get together their first ever sleepover.
They prepare themselves in reaching it with the only efficient tool a kid could have: insisting over and over again.
Eventually they succeeded and we had to keep our promise.
The date was scheduled. The two little friends were ready.
The promise was a declaration of being faithful to detachment.
The more the kids detach from their parents, the more you realize you are not just a mother. And you are scared because you forgot how to figure it out. How to do to be a person. How to do to be a couple, as well. That’s all.
You are scared not just of emptiness itself, you are scared of how you will be able to fill it.
For me, saying yes to my daughter’s first ever sleepover was saying yes to the beginning of a detachment path. The red flag she was growing up. The red flag I cannot stop it.
She prepared her stuff: a brush for her long hair; the day-after-perfect outfit; a delicate mousse to wash her face; toothpaste and toothbrush; her fluorescent “your-are-a-star” pyjama; the book she was reading.
All these things had got their shelter into her pink backpack, resting on her bed, ready to take off.
Along the days preceding the sleepover, I discovered myself grumpy. I was grumpier than ever especially with her. I thought there was something wrong with me. But I was not able to give it a name. Why did I was so fire-in-the-hole with her?
Then suddenly, the answer came to me. I did not accept her excitement. I did not accept her joy without ripples for that sleepover, meaning she would have been away from me.
But, you cannot stop something unstoppable.
My daughter was growing up and she was asking wings to fly. To me, the one who could assure just solidly anchored roots.
By unravelling the tangle of my feelings, I realized I was angry with her: she was going to share her joy with another person. And still I was scared: what kind of mother was I?
You must tell yourself the hard truth as you face your worst enemy or your worst fear, ever.
You must tell yourself the truth to go, really, ahead in your life.
By unravelling the tangle of my feelings, I realized I was hit by a tender and tiny awareness: freedom. This connection with my inner self was born from detachment: a way as any to survive an absence or a constellations of absences, whose my daughter’s first ever sleepover was just the beginning.
So the big day came.
I felt like sliding into that moment to come. I was quiet. I was persistently observing everything. I was acting as an hunter without knowing if I would have deserved to find out the treasure.
I made a deal with myself: never saying her that at any time, during the night, she would have been come back home. I was not ignoring this could be my secret relief, the certainty she needed me. But the real heart of the deal was to step back to celebrate her life experiencing, trusting her.
So I chose silence.
You can not share everything.
Being adult means understanding how to be silent. And I did it.
I took her just one floor down.
I kissed her once.
I said her goodnight.
I heard the two friends crunchy smiles.
I grounded the floor with all my seize, as a soldier facing the last war field.
I turned on my path back home, without looking back. I need not to act like Lot or Orpheus because I was thinking I could not bare that closed door. As I came back home, I embraced the unexpected. The strong arms of my man pulled me close, without words. Without asking. I whispered him what I felt. He placated me with non-sense words, keeping me close to his body and safe as boat into the harbour, eventually.
He asked me to go out together spending the night outside.
I answered I wanted to stay home. I needed to stay there. It was the best way to accept what was going on. It was the best cure to heal my soul learning how to detach without fearing of losing love and affection. Without feeling of being replaced.
So we stayed home.
He kept me all to himself on the couch, watching together a couple of episodes of his favourite TV-series.
I started asking about the plot.
I stayed with him. Him who was missing me for such a long time.
We ordered pizza and ate it.
We drunk home brew.
I felt sleepy. I went to bedroom. I fall asleep.
I woke up, after a while, as I was waiting for something. I was waiting to dance that dance where bodies became one sweated shape. No one came.
I checked once my mobile. What was I hoping to find? A SOS text, maybe? Something like “Mommy, please, come down and bring me home”? No text at all.
Only the simple and reassuring certainty we both were growing up, following our fate.
Along the night, I just woke up twice.
I heard my man turbot snore from the living room.
I thought how diligent and light we are in celebrating our habits of solitude and tiredness.
We did not make love that night, but I felt his hand caressing my head. His way to wish me goodnight.
I felt quietly powerful, that night.
“I got it!”, I thought the day after while I was ironing, focused on what I was doing.
“I got it!”, I thought wrapping into my home morning silence, aware of somebody’s lack. Aware that I did a good job, as a person.
I made my daughter independent by allowing her the right of revolution: they call it detachment.
So, look at me now.
Am I a survivor? Yes, I am.
Am I resilient? Yes, I am.
And here you are the rest of the story.
I go out early. .
I go down the stairs. A nostalgic peek at that door separating me from her. For a while I feel like a wall between us. But now it is me the one who is detaching.
Am I detaching to defend myself? No, I am not.
I get the basement.
I am in my car. The scent of cinnamon and orange is grabbing my senses.
It is rare to feel you ARE in that moment, while time is flowing.
You have to make some exercises to reach and contain your life in that little moment of your present while it is happening. They call it mindfulness.
As for me, that morning, in that car, in that scent of spices and orange, I feel myself, catching the very moment of happening.
I seize the day.
It was just the morning after. After my daughter’s first ever sleepover.
I gave her wings without depriving her of roots.
I come home in the early afternoon, after performing as the White Fairy at theatre for a children show. My daughter is in the audience.
When the show ends up, I hug her.
We seem like two chaste vestals hiding a secret.
“How was it?”
“Fantastic!”
“Did you get your midnight snack?”
“Yes. We get chocolates biscuits.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, it was a bumpy night. Kate kicks while sleeping.”
“I did not miss you.”(me, provocative)
“I missed you, mommy. But I was happy!”
Making someone you love happy is the greatest love of all, isn’t it?
