Dear Piya,
It is the middle of the night, right now.
You have just fallen asleep in my lap.
And the tears around your eyes are yet to dry...
Today was a tough one. Of late, many days have been like that.
Tough.
Because your strong personality is going through what I can only hope to be a phase - you have become a little brat-ish.
Usually, your cute smile couple with an irresistible 'please' gets you all you want from Mumma & Papa. But there is only so much chocolate, cold drink, cream, biscuits, fried junk etc. that these pleases can extract from a mom.
But here is the tough part - you have become averse to a 'No'.
And so, every NO from me, no matter how right it may be, gets a really strong response from you; one that I never like.
It feels like these tantrums that you throw for every NO are getting more & more frequent. And as much as I would want to calmly talk us out of every situation, sometimes there just isn't the time, place or company around to facilitate that. Not to mention, my patience has been adapting to your new phase by growing thinner by the day!
So today, as you showed me some bad attitude in responae to an argument, I threw my arms up in the air & gave up.
We were at a party and I couldn't stand for a minute more owing to a terrible backache. But you refused to come back. I could have yelled at you or coerced you. I chose to do the latter.
Once we came back home, you continued throwing your weight around. That is when I have up.
I shared the troubling thought of us becoming more & more emotionally distant if you kept misbehaving with your Mumma...
You cried your eyea out at this and pouted for a good 15 min.
I stay put in one corner, calmly sharing that your bad behaviour breaks my heart, so much so that I ended up saying that.
Piya, my love, you came to me after 5 min, cried in my lap again but this time you heard what I had to share - I was hurt. I have been hurt by your brat-ish attitude a lot of late, but you have not really paid any heed to my feelings.
You did, though, today.
Aa we shared a heart-to-heart, you slept with the promise of doing better from now on.
That is when it dawned upon me.
When we are together, just you & I, you hear me. You listen to nothing else but my voice. My words reach you in the absence of any other noise of the world - the chatter of other people around, the traffic on the roads, the calls of friends, the music of the world as well as the cacophony of the world.
All these tend to die our conversations down to a point wherein we talk but seldom listen to each other.
As I sit with your breath reaching my ears from your face resting in my lap still, I wish for more of such 'Noise-less' conversations to come into our lives.
I don't know how, but I know that I will start working towards that starting tomorrow.
As of now, I am enjoying the quiet of this night.
As am I enjoying your sleeping face on my lap.
Love,
Maa.
