Mother to Child

I'm baacck....

And to kick off my re-entry into the blogging world, I'll post this which I wrote many moons ago when I was nowhere close to being a mother:

Dear Child,

Life? What can I possibly tell you about life? I am no expert. I can only tell you what I have felt and seen and learned so far. So what I am telling you is only my story, for you to take or leave as you so wish.

As you grow older, you will become more aware of time. Not time as in the real sense, meaning those handful of  moments in our lives which really matter. No, in this case I mean time as in the clock ticking time. You will notice yourself becoming more preoccupied with this notion of time and how Time is Short.  How you may not be able to fit in everything you want to do as You Have No Time.

If you can, I would say ditch this approach immediately. Do not make yourself a willing slave to this idea of time. Because in the end, it is only an idea. A powerful one, but an idea nonetheless and as with all ideas, they exist only in our minds eye unless we give them the power to live in the world.

You see, it is not true that time is short and that you have no time. In reality, time is what you make of it and if you choose to make time for something or someone, the time will be there.  Do not trust people who tell you constantly that they are so very, very busy and do not have time for you. The truly busiest people that I know always find a moment for what is important.

Be generous. Be a generous person not only with your time but with your thoughts, your actions, your money, your mind and your heart. Be someone that is interested in other people. It is always possible to find something in common or something interesting about another person no matter how different they may seem to you. Fight against the urge to think too much about yourself and instead, focus on others. Extend your perspective outwards.  There is a big wide world for you to explore with all its magic and wonders and it will open itself up to you if you choose to look at it rather than looking at yourself.

It is important in life to have discipline. I hope that I have instilled some sense of that within you. When I was a little girl, your grandmother put me in ballet classes. I hated them. For nine bitter years, I endured these classes. They were hard and tough and I hated my teacher. My mother (your grandmother) would not give into my pleas to stop.

She used to say to me, 'You don't understand now what this is giving you but you will when you are older. It is not just about learning ballet, it is learning about discipline and how to hold yourself in the world. ' 

When I was fifteen, everything changed. I became mature enough to realise how useful the discipline I had learned from ballet was. I was able to apply it in so many different sectors of my life. This discipline helped me become the woman I am today and the mother I am to you. So discipline is important. Keep some in your life at all times. It will help you through a lot in life.

Surround yourself with positive, loving people. Do not be too proud or too scared to listen to what others have to say and share in their experience of the world. We all have a lot to teach each other. Try to avoid pettiness and also do not hold yourself to impossible standards. Perfection is an illusion and a hard taskmaster. As long as you do your best in what you turn your attention to, be happy with that. Be happy with flaws.

Cultivate humility. Do not confuse humility with false modesty. Be confident and proud of yourself and your achievements but do not boast or brag. You do not need to parade yourself constantly to others.

For some reason that I cannot understand, we are encouraged in society to strive to be happy. As if Happiness is a state of being that we should all reach. Well, that is not my view. If you were happy all the time, it would drive you and everyone else around you mad. Learn to realise that happiness in life comes in moments. It comes and then it goes. Appreciate when it is with you but do not long for it constantly. Life is about so many emotions and states of being. Embrace them all rather than being fixated on only one.

There are so many more things that I wish to write and share with you but I think you will find your own way. The last thing I will leave you with is love. There is a lot said about love and so there should be as it is important. If you wish to have love in your life; be a loving person. It is a mistake to 'look'  for love, for if it is not within your own self, you won’t find it anywhere else.  For love is a reflection of your own humanity upon the world. Love is a muscle that you must constantly flex. It is not passive and it does not 'happen' to you. You create the love that you want.

I helped create you and you are my love.

Your Mother.