Mother

The closest I feel to you is when I’m far away, thousands of miles, even, and I can still feel closer to you than when you’re metres from me. When we’re in this situation we can’t speak face to face. This eliminates both the inevitable awkwardness I never fail to feel when trying to say anything ever so slightly out of the ordinary and the lack of interest you seem to pay at anything other than grades that I haven’t quite made or curfews that I’ve just about missed. 1

When we’re thousands of miles away I usually have nothing to hide from you, and even if I did it would be almost laughably simple.2

Communication through text: so uncomplicated. There is no worry about any dodgy body language or slight flicker of the eyes that I can see you attempting to read from me. There are no pauses in conversation that can be misinterpreted as lies and no accusations of having an ‘unsavoury tone’. I swear, you manage to deduct from my body language and tone of speech things that I didn’t even know I was thinking.3

Why is it that when I need something you’re always ‘busy’, ‘don’t have time’, ‘need to deal with something’, ‘have a meeting’ or just ‘can’t talk now’ but you’re still the first person I think of, sometimes the only one. 4

Are we not meant to have some sort of special, intimate connection? 5

Should we not share everything...well, some things, and get our hair done together? No?6

We’re meant to have explosive arguments, aren’t we? With raised voices, slamming doors but ultimately forgiveness and a newer, closer bond. It’s something we’ve never done, something you’ll say you never did as a teenager yourself and probably something we’ll never do. Is that odd? What does it say about us?7

I’m sure a lot of people would dissect our relationship, what little of it there is, and come up with some theory about stress, strain and the way you brought me up, or didn’t, as the case may be.8

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you...entirely. It would be a blatant lie to say that I make much of an effort myself. Maybe I learnt from you or maybe, in a weird way, you learnt from me. It’s anybody’s guess, right?9

Ultimately, it’s irrelevant what I say, or don’t say. You’ll deduce from my speech whatever you want and we’ll both go on with our own merry lives. Separately. Our relationship so distant until, three times a year, an actual physical distance pulls us together again, a time when we finally have a caring and genuine interest in each other’s petty frivolities and insignificant goings on.10

But until then I’ll embrace the relationship, the fact you think you know me. When, in truth, I know you. I know how you think, I know how to please you but most importantly I know how to fool and manipulate you. And I do so with utter delight because I know that, in the end, this whole thing is just another conversation we’ll never have.11