I do not know how it is to be a daughter. Family has always been a loaded topic for me. I should probably take extra classes in genetics to understand how my family influences the person I am or will be. I envy those persons who have gone against the flow and become successful in going their way.
Growing up I had called myself a fortunate rebel because I could be the most hard-headed daughter any parent could ever have. Looking back at my life and even until now I do not have any memory of myself being emotionally connected with my family or my parents in a deep level. Maybe it was with the upbringing or my personality.
If I would be asked to describe my young or authentic self, I would simply picture me alone, thinking, writing, reading, learning something new. My parents have been around but they do not really sit down and talk to me. I have grown up to be emotionally distant to everyone I know, except for voluminous poetry and essays I have written in my entire life tackling my inner self. I am not even sure if my parents have any idea about my works and if they would look it up when I am gone. Recently my parents have been having so much opinion about how my life should be and it is just so sad that they simply do not know me. They have no idea what it is that makes my day or what makes me smile. They have no idea what it is or what will make me happy. And I have no guts to tell it to them. Or even if I did they never listened. I feel like I am just being used to fulfill their own ambitions. Good thing I almost always say no.
Came 2020, I have resolved to limit my contact with my family or parents hoping that it would do me good. I feel deep inside of me that some time in my life, I have been uprooted. I do not see myself in my parents and I do not want to see themselves in mine. I am not the daughter that they imagine me to be. And I cannot say a thing.
This is probably why I do not entertain the thought of building a family, having children. I have no idea how. I hope there is nothing wrong with me.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
– Kahlil Gibran
