To You Who Grew Up With Helicopter Parents
To my dear sibling in constraint upbringing
How have you been lately? Yes, like, really been.
You don’t have to place back the lid over the overboiling pot around me, I myself have done it far too many times and have been burnt by it.
I still sometimes do it against my better knowledge.
Unfortunately.
I still sometimes spend mornings staring helplessly at my outfit of the day, wondering if it’s good enough for aunt Eugene down the block, uncle Mark the bus driver, and mr. & mrs. Stanely from church.
I do hope you wouldn’t do it, though. I do hope you’d simply look at the mirror, smile, and walk out before the mornings turn into noons.
I still sometimes wish I’d have said this and said that. That I’d have proudly taken the imaginary where-you-dropped-as-a-kid stare, and received the answer I’d been searching for. The ‘’nice point!’’. But, sometimes doubt takes me by the collar. It pins me down and neately sews my lips shut, whilst beaming a huge smile, telling me it knows better. So, I comply against my better knowledge.
I do hope you wouldn’t do it, though. I do hope you climb on top of the internalised fear of judgment and scream your thoughts out on the top of your lungs. Do it once. Then a second time. And suddenly fear will hide its face from your presence. But maybe. Don’t scream next to a sleeping baby. Or. When the priest says ‘’speak now or forever hold your peace’’. Try reading the room, friend.
The thing is, you can read. You can probably write and speak, too. I bet you can also stand up and gaze over your horizon. Your own, unique and beatiful trajectory.
You can look back and see the writings written in a style that does’t quite reflect you. With hands that aren’t yours. And I hope, I do really hope, that you choose to look for your own pen and continue writing the story about tomorrow.
Because that’s the most thrilling part yet.
The uncharted. The unseen. The untampered with.
Think, write, and speak until you see your broken chains and shock yourselve with how much of your own person you’ve become.
Until then, take good care, friend.
-From your dear sibling in constraint upbringing
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