barriers

There is a calmness that runs through my me when my parents call on me to give them a foot or head massage every once in a while. While the frequency of this happening has dropped quite a bit as I've grown older and its maybe because of the apparent curtain that has begun to materialise between us which makes it easier for them to look away from the loss of innocence in me. Or maybe because the child they had raised seems to be taking onto real world responsibilities and would feel demeaned when asked for a foot massage.

But that is not what I wish to write about, but instead about the very thing that I scream inside of me, every time I see this look in their eyes - a look which seems to be holding back love.

Because how inordinately lovely is it to be able to demand love when you feel like it.

As I grow older, I've begun to understand the tragedy of growing up to not be a subduing version of responsibility but rather a negotiable commodity of affection. What must've gone through their minds to transition into living this lie of love being a negotiable quantity that they have to earn rather than claim with full fledged entitlement like they used to? Or is it something that I did? Was I the one to pull the curtain between us as a veil to hide my loss of innocence?

Maybe the reason for this overwhelming feeling of throwing up when these thoughts go though my head is the realiastion that the opposite of love isn't hate but rather a restraining feeling of having to earn every act of care from someone you love. Apologising after asking for breakfast in bed. Stealing glances before having to ask me to keep myself free for the evening. Convinving and confiming thrice with me for a movie night. All were forms of growing up I knew had an inevitable arrival and they seemed to have arrived now; while I still feel like running away.