The Love I Didn’t Always Understand

I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking over so many things. I probably shouldn’t even be writing this but who knows, someone out there might also be thinking just about this. You know there’s this saying that goes ‘you never fully understand something or someone until you find yourself in their position’.

This is about everything and nothing at the same time. I wouldn’t say I had a difficult upbringing, I lived a good life as a kid. Perhaps, more than an average kid will. I’ve always been a bubbly person since I was a kid, but I started to grow, thing happened and I slowly started losing myself. You know what I did next, I started blaming others, especially my parents. But recently, it just hit me that they also have their lives to live but they still managed to give me the best life possible. At some point, I’ve seen my parents give up so much just for me to be where I am today.

They probably were a bit had on me in my teen years as I was doing so many things wrong. I lost focus trying so hard to fit into every environment and it cost me a lot. Aside that, we’ve had our fair share of problems which magically solved themselves, you know how African parents can be. I spent years and years waiting for an apology which never came. I guess their way of saying sorry was being there for me, but that didn’t really mean much for me.

Being away from home made it worse. I’ve been so busy trying to figure things out for myself, with my career, my life and everything all together. We started to fall apart as a family. My siblings and I are now older, doing our own stuff. They do get to go home and visit at least every month, but I don’t. So, I start wondering if my mom is lonely with us not being by her side. I always find myself worrying and calling her to remind her to go for checkups. My dad, we’ve been the closest since but we lost touch. Now, I’m finally able to understand how it feels to carry so much responsibilities on your back. These days, I try my best to call him every week since he’s always busy. At least 30 minutes of my time to catch up with him and remind him I still appreciate how much he does for me would hurt my schedule.

I thought it was too late for us and I was too far away. But I guess the time to start was now. My parents are growing old and I haven’t even had the opportunity to grow with them and spend some quality time with them for over 5 years now. It’s sad, but I know there’s always a home for me once I’m done here. But for now, I see how much they are doing for us all as a family, I know it wasn’t easy and I haven’t heard them complain for even once. I guess that’s what being a parent looks like. Showing up each and everyday even when you don’t want to.

As an older child, I’m literally a parent to my siblings and I understand how stressful it can be. I don’t have much, but I try my best to help them in any little way to ease the burden on my parents. They probably don’t even need it, but really, it’s the thoughts that counts. Everyone needs support even when they don’t need it. It’s not really about the support sometimes , it’s the feeling of knowing that someone’s looking out for you and that alone is enough.

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all images belong to me.

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