An Approval

“It won’t last.”

“What won’t last? Do you think the colour will run? Man they over charge for cottons!”

“No, not that overpriced rag in your hand that passes off for a tunic. This. This phase you’re in, with your head in the clouds. It won’t last. It’s a lot of work, and you need to be practical about these things”

“Pessimist much?! Come on, get over it! I found the guy. You thought I never would. You even asked me if I was gay, remember? Offering your support. Saying it will be okay. I don’t see what the trouble is now. I’m there – a committed relationship. I’m happy. I’m buying a girly tunic in red for God’s sake. It’s not black and it’s not a t-shirt. How do you NOT attribute this to love?

I was there once. With my head in the clouds. With that feeling that convinces you that love makes you invincible, and you can take on the big, bad world and all its monstrosities. Everything feels like a UG 15 Hollywood movie set – the colours are brighter and life looks like it is the most beautiful thing.  You truly believe la vie en rose.

But it sets in though, and slowly. So slowly you hardly see it coming.

Along the way, when you are driving to one of those mundane weekend chores, you suddenly realise that there isn’t a hand that’s reaching out for yours, there isn’t a caress at every red light, no fingers brushing the hair away from your face. What is there of course, is a tattered t shirt and old shorts that walk into a store and look for tooth brushes.

You look in the mirror and wonder why there isn't that need to spend another extra minute – it will only take a minute – to line your eyes with kohl. And then that dreaded thought pops in - what for. The pair of mismatched socks and faded shirt across the room do not care whether your eyes are rimmed with kohl or tears.

It slowly seeps into you, and takes over who you are, and becomes a part of you. You don’t realise it until you catch a stranger giving you a look with such disdain that you truly start to take a look at yourself. The way you catch a passer-by looking at your house, and you look around, truly see, and wonder why the cracks and faded paint have gone unnoticed and for so long, time to give the whole place a lick of paint. Maybe next year. And it turns into the next, and the next. When you walk around without realising that you have batter caked on your shirt at a checkout counter that earns you the look, you know you have become the living and breathing version of the ancestral home you've inherited after ammamma passed on. Cracked, malfunctioning, with a shaky foundation that means a complete overhaul of the whole place.

But that was my inheritance, not hers. I look at her as she wrinkles her nose at everything she sees. I patiently wait for her to lose patience and give up so we could walk into a store with tees and jerseys. I know those will be the only ones she will wear. The lovey-dovey clothes will rot in the corner of her cupboard until she discovers them one day when she is frantically searching for something to wear to a wedding she doesn't want to go to in the first place.

We were opposites in every way. From the clothes we wore, the work we did, our choice of public transport (she will smart at the idea of not being in control, auto drivers are my saviours). She will use the “da’s” , the “podas”, the “dei’s” and the “dude” at the drop of a hat, I wish I was in Austenland and live there indefinitely so I could hear people talk the way they did.

Not for her the disappointment and the settling. Not for her the killing of a sunny disposition.

As far as I remember, the fact that we were different only made me protect her more. Not for her the killing of the idea of love. Not when it took her so long to take the plunge, trust someone outside of her little circle. When she broke out of her shell of ferociousness to finally let somebody in, how do I bring myself to break her happy bubble?

We finish up, walk in to the place and plonk our bags on an empty chair, look at each and burst into a fit of giggles. We had done some strange things together, but this was by far the strangest. She didn’t feel young enough to be asking for approval, and I didn't feel old enough to be approving any man she was with.

The minute he walked in, the look of joy on her face just took my breath away. I even saw this look of pride that for a minute unsettled me. She was proud, of herself, of me, our little circle, but this was new. He sat next to her and I could see this was a different person. She was not the girl I knew anymore, she looked like she was a young woman who knew her way around the world. He put an arm around her and I could almost swear that she glowed!

We talked, she glowed some more, and I jokingly asked him if his intentions were honourable. He swore they were, that he meant the best, that they were in love, did they have my approval. And that made me laugh. Not because I was nowhere qualified to be handing over approvals, but because I had a vision of a similar intent and vociferous submissions of love. The flashes of memory were so distinct and clear in my memory they almost threw me off. I remembered the feeling of being held and being moved across the floor. I remembered feeling as graceful as a Duchess in a ball. They were immediately followed by memories of feeling broken and misshapen. Of that distinct feeling of being alone and alienated. In my mind, they would always be connected – the girl who was envied for being carried across a dance floor and the girl who wept out of such heartache that it changed her world.

I wanted to protect this happy being so fiercely from all that pain, that I did a double take when two expectant faces looked at me. Of course I was not okay with this, far from okay, definitely not okay. I excused myself.

As I looked at the mirror in the harsh bright lights that all these new-fangled places seem to have, I could clearly see how much I had changed, aged, but not by the years. No. I did not relish the prospect of seeing her turn into a shell of what she had once been. She cannot turn out to be me, as much as she was mine. She was a strange being, a heady mix of me and her father, the one that came into the world when I was nowhere close to ready. But here she was heading into the same pit that I had taken no heed and fallen into. I headed back with the clear intention of finally being a mother, of telling her she was forbidden. My God, for never having said that her entire life, it was going to take some kind of courage to tell her that I was deciding to be a stereotypical mother when she least expected it. But no, I was determined to never let her feel the things I felt.

I walked back, and I had to stop in my tracks. She was right there in the middle of the floor, with her head on his shoulder and they moved like they were in a world of their own. She held his hand and looked up at him, and he laid a gentle kiss on her head. She looked more at peace than I had ever known her to have been.

And that was the end of my determination. Oh, my sweet summer child.