I thought that by the time these things started happening, the circumstances would be different to what they are at this point.

I always knew she would grow up and leave at some point, obviously, but I didn’t expect it to be yet, or under these circumstances. I didn’t expect it to feel so shitty, that’s for sure, or for her tunnel vision to be quite as narrow as it appears. I didn’t expect her to stay out most nights at another family home with a boyfriend I’ve never met. I didn’t expect her leaving and changing to feel like someone ripped my heart out, or like she has entirely denounced me.

This is not about self-pity. Well, maybe the act of writing about it here is, but everything behind it has nothing little to do with it.

We all have hopes and wishes for our children. We want them to have better lives, or similar lives to our own. People compare her to me and my life at her age and I dismiss the comparison. I refuse it. The circumstances that surrounded me are entirely different to those that surround her. Yes, I had a child at her age. Yes, I had a home at her age. Yes, I had a job at her age but that means nothing. It doesn’t mean that as long as what she does doesn’t fall below the level I was at at a certain age, then anything above it is ok. I want better for her. She should want better for her. I don’t want her struggling or missing out on anything. I want her to love her life, to be able to experience things and places, to feel free, to stay young and vibrant because she has avoided a hard life. I want her stable and secure in an unstable world. Stability, comfort, and peace has to be strived for, for most of us anyway. The possibility for experiences comes from funding those experiences.

I am not saying that there are set things that she should have, save for a good job and a nice home. I don’t think she would be failing if she didn’t marry and have children, for example. I think she should have tattoos and piercings, and crazy hair if she wants it. I do want her to see beautiful places, and to do brave things. I want her to be successful – but then, i know we all measure success differently.

I guess I just wanted a good life for her, that’s all. A free and safe life and a strong and prosperous place in the world.

But here’s where I think I went wrong. Well, one of the ways in which I went very wrong…

I made her feel like she was my biggest mistake.

I wasn’t hard about anything else other than boys, sex, and education. My greatest fear for her was that she would sacrifice experience and the chance of education, freedom and stability by making the same mistakes I did. I would tell her that I wanted a better life for her than I had, that I wanted more for her than I had. What I didn’t realise, while I was trying to steer her in the right direction, was that I was deeming her my mistake – the biggest mistake a person could make, the biggest mistake that I had made.

That is, the mistake that caused me to miss out on education, travelling, a social life, a career, financial stability. One that prevented my own success. One that hindered me at every potential avenue to the extent that my life, the one that she was at the centre of and was the priority of, was insufferable.

I didn’t mean to do that.
That isn’t the message I meant to give her.

I meant to empower her, not make her feel worthless. I wanted a good life for her, not to make her feel like she made my life bad.

The only things she had ever defied me over are boys and education. The presence of too much of the former, and not enough of the latter, we’re all I was focused on. She didn’t ever do anything else wrong that made me a mad parent, not really. Those are the areas of her life where she has found her right to assert herself in immediate defiance to the lines I etched; those that were my greatest fears for her.

I never meant to make her feel like she was the greatest mistake I made. She was probably, looking back as I often do, one of the best decisions I ever made. Maybe one day she’ll realise that she has brought me the greatest amount of happiness. It’s always been me and her. She has been my priority since I was a child myself, my best company, and loveliest friend and now, she misunderstands so deeply that the gap between us feels wider each day.

I did not mean for that to happen.