3. Would I feel more if I had not followed him there?
Part 3 of the “Therapeutic” series of essays
“Would I feel more if I had not followed him there?”, part of the Therapeutic series 2022, UV printed on foamex, 60cm x 90cm x 0.3cm
Because of my Father, I suppose it was inevitable that I sought a love that was not second-hand. A love that was not unilateral. A love that didn’t feel like the acid burn in my throat after vomiting. And so, when I had the choice between independence or following my first love to university, I chose the latter. A foolish choice. I took for granted the privilege of being educated, of having a choice - and I stayed with my man. Fool, fool, fool. I curse myself for being so short-sighted. For trying to patch over the tears with someone else’s love.
It did not take long for me to regret my choice. To realise I had failed my potential out of fear of being rejected, of being alone.
I hope our love for you gives you the strength to pursue your interests selfishly. To prioritise your need for growth. I want you to soar into the night sky until you have spent all your fuel and your rocket is pulled back into the gravitational orbit of adult compromise. I want you to be able to reach for it all, knowing you will fail, but willing to hold tight to the things that fulfil you most.
I held so much resentment for my first childish love, that cartoon bandage, until I met your father. And then it was useless to me. If I had not made the choice I had made I would not have met him then, and we could not have willed you into the world. I would not be me and you would not be you. I discard the regret, the question and I let the bandage fall to the floor. It is redundant now.
I knot the thread and hold it at the front of the work as I stitch. A record of the act of starting. A record of my hand. The thread becomes twisted as I work and gradually another knot forms and I allow it to sit within the text, to become part of it. The writing is fragile, hurried, but the stitching is slow, tracing the lines and curves and reinforcing them, their complexity increasing with each iteration. It cannot be undone unless it is unpicked, un-knotted and cut. I weave a question with the thread, and it is embellished with my faults.
When the handkerchief is finished, I shall show it for all to see. The text is small, barely readable. People will have to crane their necks and furrow their brows to make it out, they will stand close to it, perhaps they will smell my blood on the surface, the acrid stench of the burnt fabric. Perhaps dried mud will fall on their shoes.
I think of the handkerchiefs as evidence of a crime, of my inertia. I think of them as butterflies captured and pinned. As specimens, rare and fragile, some caught mid-flight, and some collected as corpses on the ground. I wonder what it means for someone else to look at them from the outside, to participate in their exposure. Do they see themselves reflected? If not, are they glad? Do they wonder at what I am willing to show, what I willing to sell?
