41

I am afraid for you, daughter of mine.

You see flickers of me constantly leaving, rituals to you familiar by now. The dressing up. The makeup. The carrying of the bag. I am off to chase dreams, leaving you behind. The ritual is so familiar to you by now that even when I take a bath and choose clothing for an ordinary work day, you ask me, "Where are you going?" Sometimes, you whimper in your sleep. I wonder if you dream of the sum of people who have left you.

I am afraid that you will guard yourself completely like I did. That even with the repetition of "I love you's", you will not believe. Daughter, do not reach that point. It is harder to trust and love, but I would guess, more worth it than to not have done it at all, to close yourself from it from the very beginning.

I worry that your angst will consume you. I worry that your bursts of happiness will ultimately fall to long stretches of wanting to be unhappy again.

For myself, I worry that I did this to you. I worry for being the proverbial bad parent, consumed by her own wants and dreams and ideals. I worry, like so many others, that you will not love me by the time that you will realize love is a choice, not a condition.

Artists, even shadow ones, often make bade parents, they say. These are the times when I wish I were an accountant instead.