Member-only story
The Mom Who Sang on Rainy Days
I made a choice to be the person I wanted my children to remember
I was disappearing. I could feel it deep inside of me. Layer upon internal layer. A series of tiny little emotional dents chipping away at my center.
The shedding of my being.
It was a process.
Until one day my snake-like skin had been abandoned.
Human beings continue to grow. If a snake does not discard old layers there will be no advancement. No ability to grow bigger and stronger.
Hence, why a deserted snakeskin appears nearly whole.
As if the slimy creature simply undressed.
Likewise, I had slithered out of myself.
But there was a contradictory cause.
I had stopped growing.
The ones I grew up with witnessed my vanishing. They protested it. Others stayed politely quiet. I yo-yoed between these worlds. The people who tolerated me dangling by a string and the ones who attempted to yank me back to my beginning.
The former voices begging me to leave my marriage and maintain my original appearance. The latter…
