Last night, I came across something which sounds almost curel and strange, but it sounds so realistic and true. The line says: "In order to achieve your childhood, you have to give up that child." Oh and it is confusing and paradoxical as well.
So basically, in order to give yourself the childhood you never had or were denied, you may have to stop waiting for someone else to come and give it to you.
Think of a child who grew up without enough affection. Both parents were busy in giving the bestest life for him. Yes it was for him. However, at that time, what matters the most was kind and warm affection, nothing else. He was seeing other parents coming to school for them, joining them in silly activities, even scolding them for being lively. Now, he is an adult. But, a part of him - psychologically - remain stucked there. He keeps looking backward, thinking: someone should have loved me differently. Someone should have scolded me. I should have had experienced those moments.
And that feeling is understandable. But the actual problem is, he cannot go back and become the child he should have been.
Okay, this far, it is acceptable and natural. But here is something which makes the idea uncomfortable. Why should an already deprived soul be asked to surrender even the dream of what they were denied? Like haven't they already lost enough?
But maybe there is a difference between mourning a lost childhood and spending the rest of your life trying to recover it.
Because, there are two things, from the past, we carry: memories of what happened; memories of what should have happened.
First one is concrete and more like a surface level world. You remember the school you went to, the family dinners you had, the birthday you celebrated, the day someone showed up and the day no one did. These things have dates, places, faces etc.
The second one is bit absurd. It reminds me of Kafka's Letter to Hia Father.
There are memories of things that never happened. Yet you think of those memories, and still want to live those moments. The parent who should have come to the school function. The dinner that should have been natural and not forced. The family trip that was planned but never implemented. The conversation you needed but never given.
In simple words, these imaginary memories become remarkably real inside us, but never lived.
But my concern is: who is responsible here?
The parents? But they were busy trying to give their child a better life. The child? But he is just a child. The one who cannot even express his feelings properly. The circumstances? Maybe! Like it made affection, a strangely ordinary thing, feel like a luxury.
Sometime nobody shares the whole. Neither they are entirely innocent nor guilty.
We, humans, have always loved to play the blame games. Still, the question of blame is difficult to answer. Because, sometimes there is not a single person, we can point at and say, that one is the problem.
Maybe this is where the paradox finally starts to make sense. Maybe giving up the child does not mean abandoning him. Maybe it is giving up the expectations that someone is still coming to save you and fix everything for you.
But, after these many maybes, there is one thing we know. Nobody is coming. You cannot relive those concrete memories the same way, neither you can find the parent who should have been there.
And that is probably the cruelest part of growing up. Because sometimes, you have to accept that certain things will remain unfinished.
You still have the right to be angry, to wish for things.
But you cannot spend the rest of your life standing at the sane gate. And that is what it means to "give up the child." Not to kill him, but to stop asking the present to repair the past. You have all the rights to look back and say, you should have lived a better life.
Growing up is not about forgetting the child you were, but finally becoming the person that child was waiting for.
Remember what Po, the warrior said: "The only thing that matters is who you choose to be NOW."
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Peace 馃晩
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