Mum+Dad-Me

I've been living in London these past 6 years, my parents in Czech, deep in the countryside. I don't see them too often. That way, to me, their aging comes in this leaps, jump cuts to use the editing lingo.

I remember the first time they came to visit me in UK, I went to pick them up at Liverpool Street - they were scanning the street, me approaching from the other direction. All of a sudden, just a split second, something cold and spiky squashed my insides. Seeing my father from behind, I had a brief feeling it was his dad, my grandad instead. It baffled me. I had to do a few steps back and breathe it out. My parents are getting old. You know them looking a certain way for the most of your life and all of a sudden, there comes the changes.

It's both terrifying and beautiful, because no matter how old we all get, in their presence the old dynamics soon fall in place and you are a child again and they keep being mum and dad, and it's ok, even though you're soon to be thirty.##

Vitek's family dynamics at its finest: dad fixing the thermostat whilst me and my mum are making pie, but really we are drinking vodka and cranberry and I'm not really helping that much rather than taking pictures.

For medical reasons, I had to spend some time back home in October 2014, becoming for a little bit a part of my mum's and dad's world that they have built for themselves, entering the relationship's dynamic by being there every day for two weeks.

We were pulling to the parking lot one day - me and my dad - to pick my mum from work. It took her a second to notice us, she was leaning there against the wall, weighted down by the overflowing shopping bags, her expression mirroring the long working day dealing with frustrating patients (my mum's the prettiest optician nurse in the South Moravia). Yet when she spotted my father approaching her to help with the shopping, her face lit up, she kissed him on a cheek and asked about his day. Which, mind you, was not that different from any other day in the last 32 years they've been together, literally every day in each others faces.

But here she was, still genuinely glad to see my dad, greeting him with a warm smile and putting the effort in, constantly and relentlessly.

Now that I'm no longer a centerpiece of their day-to-day life, visiting only a few times a year, I can see them finally for what they've been all along, where they started from - a couple. A loving couple, who's main occupation was raising me for quite a few years, but they were here before me and would go on eventually even if there ever was 'after' me.
Realising this probably helped to shape my idea of parenthood as something stemming from a strong, determined and happy relationship, rather than a personal project backed by a hormonal pressure.

My mum did not push the boundaries of science by isolating polonium and radium, and my father did not contribute to a string theory discussion, but to me they are the ultimate heroes regardless.###

They have pulled through some horrendous shit together and they had good years and absolutely fucking bad years, but here they are, still pushing through together. I am not entirely sure that our generation /me included/ is capable of such selflessness. What I see more often than not, is people being all in for the good days and when the first big compromise or problem comes they'll back off the drive way with a simple 'maybe it's not working out anymore'.

When throwing one of my drama queen teenage tantrums over some guy, mum told me once bluntly:

'You can't have conditions under which you will love your partner.'

And even though back then I hardly even got the concept of love beyond holding hands in cinema, having someone you want to dress and smell nice for and feeling butterflies, her words stuck with me. And I keep reminding myself, how dangerous and misusing are the beliefs we wrap our relationships in.

You can have a belief such as 'if he loved me, he would never have raised his voice at me'. But than - can you love someone and still raise your voice? Of course. Holding on to that false belief, when your partner does raise his voice, to you it must equal to 'he doesn't love me'.

I had a similar stupid and limiting beliefs about the bad days, boredom or the other person being unhappy. I would automatically make the math that if we are bored, if there is a lack of laughter and excitement and smiles and butterflies and enthusiasm, even if it's just one afternoon, or if the other person struggles with being happy in any area of his life, it must mean the love is over. Sure, having a partner, who transferred the responsibility for his happiness entirely on my shoulders and whenever he had a little crisis, his career/health/friendships/purpose in life wasn't going the way he wanted, he immediately questioned and attacked the first thing at hand - our relationship, did not exactly help.

But alas, I am aware and working on this.

Constantly trying to let go of the old beliefs and giving a chance to love, however flawed or sometimes hurting, sometimes boring, sometimes demanding, however diverted from my idea and plan I have for the other person in my life.###

And courageously believing in love. Always one more time, as Maya Angelou suggest. Always.