Page 67 of Collin: Episodes 1-3
Mr. Reevesworth chuckled. “Cloistered person would be imprecise but perhaps communicative. I’m not entirely certain you are off the mark as it is.”
“Humor aside, are you saying I just need different friends, sir?”
“Until you are strong enough to hold your own reality and be grounded in your own approval, then yes.”
Collin swallowed. He blinked water out of his eye. “Mom’s going to literally birth kittens. If you thought her calling the police on my location was bad…”
“You’re under no obligation to tell her.”
Cold swept through Collin’s body. “Sir, not telling her last time didn’t go well.”
“Did it go badly? Think, Collin.”
“She called the police.”
“And the matter was handled efficiently and without fallout.”
Collin rubbed his face. “Most people think that the police being called is a bad thing, sir.”
“I do not.”
Collin furrowed his brow and stared up at Mr. Reevesworth. “Is that because you have a lot of money?”
“It’s because I had nothing to hide. And I’m absolutely capable of making this city rue the day it strays outside of the law.”
“Well, that’s not my world, sir.”
“It is now, Collin. That is not, however, today’s lesson. Close your eyes.”
Collin closed his eyes.
Mr. Reevesworth’s voice floated above him, soft and dark. “Take a look forward, into the future. Imagine you have made choices based on what you know she wishes you to experience as your mother. Imagine living out your life just to allow her to cling to the satisfaction of her own chosen guidelines of what makes her a good mother and your natal family “good”. Don’t let yourself do anything else but what she wants in this imaginary life.
“And remember, you are bearing all the consequences and the costs. Somewhere between your forties and sixties, she will pass on. You may only have a bare twenty or thirty years left of your own good health. Your youth will be gone. You will have likely committed to a partner in a marriage that she is happy to have at her dinner table for holidays. You have the requisite number of children. You hold that respectable job. You live where she desires you to live. Hold all of that. Make it real.”
Collin shuddered. Mr. Reevesworth let silence fill the room.
When he spoke again, it was very quiet. “Tell me, are you happy?”
“No.” To Collin’s own ears, his voice was stark and harsh. “I’m miserable.”
“The greatest sin of a parent is to burden a child with the measure of their status in life. It strips a child of their identity and destroys the growth of their personhood. Such a progeny has two options, to rebel and become an outcast that is still saddled with the obligation or to submit and surrender even the option of having their own dreams or the freedom to adapt to new circumstances. What was good advice in one time and place is disastrous in another, and yet I see so many individuals repeat the actions of their parents under pain of abandonment and shame.”
“She just wants what’s best for me.”
“Does she? Perhaps. But does she know what is best for you? Does she know how the world actually works for you, starting from where you started, which is different than where she started? Is she ready to be wrong about the methods of obtaining what she wants for you? Is she attached to what the outcome of happy looks like? Or can she release the how and be true to the what?”
Collin sat up and put his feet on the floor. His face dropped into his hands. “I-I want to think she can.”
“Then that is how you tell her anything. Don’t fight the construct of how. Appeal to the true desire, whatever that is.”
“You must be a wicked negotiator, sir.”
“Who says I negotiate? I let people talk themselves into wanting what is best for everyone.” Mr. Reevesworth smirked, and a glimmer in his eyes gave away his jest.
“If I resign the courses, sir, I may not be able to make myself go back, at least not to this school.”
“The future is always in motion.”
