Creating a habit in 66 days: Day 8
There was time in my adolescence when I was ashamed of my mother. (Don’t be in hurry to judge me though). Surely, I had my reasons for that. First of all, she was not as educated as the mothers of other girls at school, I thought. Second, she was not as active as other parents. She didn’t express her opinion openly as others. She wasn’t involved in the school events as other parents. She didn’t love me as she should have done. And many other reasons and stupid comparisons… However, the post is not about how I didn’t like my mother around me or how stupid I was (of course, I was). The post is about how feelings can change instantaneously, or how sometimes we can hate/be ashamed of the closest and most beloved people in our life. The reasons behind? …
I had an elder brother. We used to have a lot of arguments because we had very different views on many things. I was a hopeless optimist, but he wasn’t. I used to see only good things in people, but he didn’t. I believed I would be successful whatever meaning the word carried for me at that time. Unfortunately, he didn’t have such a belief, at least I have never heard him expressing it. Being older than me for seven years, he believed he knew more about life than me. Being younger didn’t stop me from having my own opinion on people an things, and life in general. So, we used to fight. A lot. This was us, two siblings with the same parents, fighting over things, sometimes very stupid. And there was time when I realized that there was more hate than love between us.
Time passed and we both grew older. However, the age was the only thing that changed in us. We still had arguments as we still had very different views. I still hated him, and by the time when I graduated from university, I thought that was normal. That discomfort when I was ashamed of my mother wasn’t present there. The love for a sibling changed into hate. Then he died. I received a sad news through a phone call. Then all feelings just stopped. There was no hate, nor love. There was nothing to feel.
It took me more than one hour to truly realize that he’s gone forever. It took me another hour to be able to cry on him. That was the moment when I realized how much I loved him. That was the moment when I understood that I would never be able to tell him that. The hatred feelings changed into longing.
Years have passed since that tragic day, but the question still bothers me. Why do feelings change that fast but not on time?! If being ashamed of my mother was my adolescent stupidity which I fortunately overcame, but what about feelings towards my elder brother? Is the death the only reason for us to see that feelings can change that rapidly? Maybe I wasn’t as much forgiving as I am told I should be? The questions that I haven’t answered yet, and not really hoping to find an answer for…