Page 116 of My Merry Mistake
“But I don’t think you are.”
“It’s starting to feel that way.”
“I’m sorry, hon,” she says. “You’re so strong, I think it’s easy to forget sometimes that being strong can be exhausting.”
I look at her, thinking about all the ways she modeled strength for us over the years. All the ways I tried to do the same for her. I wanted to be strong so it would give her one less thing to worry about it. I still do.
“You know it’s okay tonothave everything all figured out, right?” she asks, her eyes kind. “You have such specific ideas about what it is you think you need,” she says. “And usually you’re right about everything, so I understand why it’s difficult to change your mind.”
I frown. “You think I’m wrong?”
She shrugs. “Not wrong, exactly. Stubborn, maybe?”
I give her a knowing look, and she smiles.
“You’ve always been strong-willed. You get an idea in your head and it stays there.” Her eyes go wide. “Forever.” She squeezes my hand. “You know I don’t like to get in your business, and I rarely have opinions on your life because you really don’t need my advice.”
My frown deepens because it’s not the first time she’s alluded to this. “Is that what you think?”
“Oh, Raya, you haven’t needed anyone else’s opinion since you were eight years old. You know your own mind. Always have.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care what you think,” I say.
“Do you?” she asks.
I nod. “Of course I do.” And it breaks my heart to think that I somehow sent her the message that I didn’t.
“Okay.” She leans in. “When I think of the kind of man I want you to end up with,” she says, almost wistfully, as if Prince Charming really does exist, “I think of someone good and kind, who looks at you like you hung the moon. Someone who champions the things you accomplish . . . and values some of the things you don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I heard Justin talking about your work ethic, I wanted to scream,” she says. “Because your job is not who you are.”
My eyes cloud over with fresh tears. “It kind of is, Mom.”
She clasps both of my hands in her own. “No, it’s not. That’s what youdo, Raya, it’s not who youare. And sometimes you get so wrapped up in it that you forget to live. You forget there’s a whole big world out there just waiting for you to explore. Not to conquer. Just to explore. Because you get to be here on this earth right now, and that is a beautiful thing.
“Sometimes it feels like you’re working so hard to earn your place here. Like if you don’t work for it, you have no right to it.”
My gaze drops, but hers remains on me. I can feel it.
“For the right person, you won’t have to do a single thing to earn their love,” she says. “You have it simply because you exist.”
A tear streams down my cheek. I swipe it away.
“I don’t think the right person exists, Mom,” I say, my voice wobbling.
“You have such impossibly high standards for yourself,” she says. “So you have impossibly high standards for everyone else too. Maybe it’s time to try something new. To challenge your own way of doing things.”
I think about Justin and the way I’d epically botched that. My way hadn’t worked out so well, had it?
“What if, over the next few weeks, you didn’t try to find ways to work?” she says. “What if you simply let yourself off the hook? Rest doesn’t always mean lying around on the couch. And taking a break doesn’t have to mean sleeping in until noon. You can relieve your stress by doing things that fill you up. Just for fun.”
Fun. There’s that word again. I look at her. “I don’t really know how to do that.”
“Oh, I know,” she laughs. “But I think I know a few people who can help.” She smiles at me. “We’ll start this weekend with the Christmas carnival. Finn told me he wants to buy you your own tree.”
I half-laugh and shake my head. “I don’t understand why he’s so invested in my life.”
