Lately I’ve been thinking about our mothers getting older, not as they are now but when they were becoming. There’s a phrase that tugs at my heart everytime I hear it, “she’s just a girl”. It’s often said when we see an older woman reclaiming her childhood by doing something for her inner child. But it makes me think about how many women were never allowed to just be girls in the first place.
At my current age, my mother already had two children. I can’t even fathom having a pet ATM, if I’m being honest. Somedays I get from work and I don’t even want to talk to my own self, talk more of having a family to cater to. And I promise you, now I understand the quick irritation, the need to be indoors and why all she wanted was for the chicken to be thawed and trash taken out.
It makes me wonder how they felt in that stage, carrying the responsibilities they did, often without the room to express exhaustion. I also feel a quiet guilt when I think about how I (and many other, don’t get righteous on me) could have extended more grace to our parents. It was their first time living life and they too were figuring it out in real time like we are. Maybe that’s the gift of emotional maturity, the ability to change your opinion when presented with new facts.
These days, I live for videos of older women doing things they probably didn’t get to do when growing up. My TikTok FYP never fails to show me a video of a mum or grandma getting to experience the life she once imagined, whether that’s taking a trip, going to Disneyland/a theme park or getting a once coveted childhood toy. And I wonder if the next generation will one day e extend the same grace to us, choosing not to hold our faults too tightly because, like the women before us, we were also living life for the first time. Some lessons no matter how well prepared you are, are best learned through experience and mistakes.
So I wonder about the older woman and how she sees the world today, but most especially how she saw it growing up. If I were seeing life through her eyes, I would see
A woman navigating womanhood, marriage, adulthood and motherhood all at once
A woman learning to say no to herself and her desires because selflessness is expected of her
A woman who just wanted the chicken thawed on time to reduce her workload in the kitchen
An overstimulated woman who just needed 10 minutes of peace and quiet to keep her from losing her mind
A woman silently grieving something lost without having a name to call it
A woman who probably just needed her own mummy too
A woman who was becoming and unbecoming all at the same time
And if I could, I would hug that woman tight, the way you hold someone who has been strong for too long
