Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Nost al Gia
It's strange how nostalgia drags you into the realms of the past, letting you taste the bittersweetness of what it was like to be someone yesterday.
Mom emailed today, saying that she's feeling the tug of reality that life really is a cycle. Solitude-courtship-marriage-having kids-watching them grow up-letting them go-solitude again. Dad, Lynn and she will be leaving this weekend for a beach retreat at Bali and i had asked her if she was psyched for it. She shrugged, and said that there won't be much preparation to do after all. "Huh, why?" Apparently, she has come to a point of realisation that this time, she has only her own stuff to pack. And no one else's, unlike before when she'll be on her toes, nagging us kids to get our checklists done and marking them out and stuffing our clothes into her suitcase.
Whoa.
That struck me.
I've never seen mom in that light before. No, not as someone who keeps vigil over us all these while. Not as someone who has made it a point, a habit to ensure that her children are all safe and sound and out of trouble. It's like clockwork. I've never realised that as a mother, she'll have so much in her mind, so much responsibility on her shoulders. It doesn't come with the job description, no siree. She simply just chose to do it. And all these while i thought Mom was simply...Mother.
So much has changed since i left home four months ago. Not that long, but long enough to make me straighten things out. Things that i never knew were there had somehow, creeped up and get themselves tangled up in my heartstrings. It's tough to come to the realisation and fact that i'll have to be away from home for another 4 more years. It seems way too long a time to arrive at the end.
Nostalgia : We are shaped by the past more than we can fully understand it - and ever more decisively than when we think we have put those events behind us and moved on.
