Simone Brown

Tag: family

  • Happy Birthday! Who Will I Be Tomorrow?

    Happy Birthday! Who Will I Be Tomorrow?

    It’s my birthday (everyone say happy birthday)! I’m officially in my mid-twenties.

    I find birthdays intimidating; there’s so much pressure resting on them to be a quick measure of yearly progress. Look on social media, speak to your friends, ask your parents— everyone has an opinion about when you should be doing things. Although life is the longest thing any of us will ever experience, it feels all too short when I look at everything I want to become and compare it to everything I currently am. I’ve definitely made progress, but is it enough to make sure I cross the finish line satisfied?

    I’m a birthday crier. I cry from the pressure I place squarely on my chest, pinning me to my bed in the morning. I also cry from gratitude and delight. Clearly, I’m emotional on my birthday, and I don’t blame myself for it one bit. Waking up and symbolically turning the page of your story to a whole new chapter is both exciting and dreadful. I have to ask myself questions like, compared to my last birthday, am I happier turning 24? Was I everything I hoped to be at 23?

    I can confidently say I’m ready to leave 23 behind, but I’m still (begrudgingly) grateful I got to experience it. Even with all the challenges, I have begun to settle into the adult label I’ve been claiming for myself since I turned 18. I sleep soundly with the answers to questions that used to keep me up all night. If I don’t have some answers, I’m more comfortable waiting to see which lessons come crashing into me and which ones gently tap me on the shoulder.

    I’m not going to recount to you all the lessons I learned at 23; there’s a lot, and you can find them in any number of blog posts or therapy sessions. I also don’t want to sink into my nostalgia, lest I be more consumed by memories than by anticipation. I think 23 can be summed up in three words: ‘well, alright then.’ Maybe not the most eloquent summation, but it captures the begrudging acceptance of what I have witnessed in my latest jaunt around the sun. Nothing so terrible that it could not be overcome, especially with the love I am so easily surrounded by if I just get the courage to ask.

    I am blessed to have my whole life to improve on who I was before turning 24, just like I’ll have the rest of my life to improve on who I will be before turning 25.

    My gut instinct is to draw a line in the sand between my previous self (silly young 23-year-old me) and my new self (wise old 24-year-old me). I know that’s preposterous. I am only 24 hours older than yesterday. I also know that anyone older than 24 is reading this, laughing at my naivety; “you think 24 is wise and old? You don’t know anything yet,” and it’s true, I don’t. But I want to. I want to grow into the best version of myself, and I am! With each birthday that passes, I feel myself inching towards the Simone that fulfills my aspirations.

    I have a tradition where, on my birthday, I write myself a letter to read exactly one year later on my next birthday. The letter is usually divided into two parts: where am I today, and where do I hope to be tomorrow? The first part is always straightforward: family, friends, love, school, hobbies, health. The second part requires a lot more deliberation. I try not to put pressure on myself, but looking to the future can become restrictive if I don’t follow certain guidelines. My wants and needs will fluctuate massively over the next year, so there’s no sense in writing things like “I will read 15 books”. I’ll save that to be my New Year’s resolution. My letter is for my eyes only, so I will only write about things I can achieve on my own. There are other rules too: stay abstract, stay forgiving, stay positive. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, be generous with the word “more.” Don’t write on days when you don’t love yourself.

    Before I look to the future, I always peek into my past. Here’s a snippet from the last letter I wrote: “I’m an adult, but becoming a more real one each month. With that comes new anxieties, but I am trying to focus on the good… I have a lot of fears and hope for the future, some things I miss, and a lot of ideas on how to live my life.”

    Already, I can feel myself becoming self-important. What did this fresh 23-year-old, without this past year’s experiences, know about the world? Still, I have to remember to be proud of her. She knew enough to write that letter, whether the contents still reflect who she is today or not.

    Now that that letter is done, it’s time to write a new one. This begs the question: when I wake up barely 24 years old, what are my expectations for myself?

    I want to be the person I needed as a child, the person I admired as a teenager, the person I seek out today. I am expanding outward into new spaces, lighting up the room as if I carried the sun in my arms. I will be kind, but not so kind as to forget my own value. I will be confident, able to take up space unapologetically. I will be healthy, not just in body but in mind. I will change, but do it at my own pace and ignore anyone who tries to rush me. I will be curious about people, places, and stories. Most importantly, I will infect everything I touch with love and joy.

    How do you do these things? Start small. Use more lemons. Write more postcards. Take more pictures. Smile at strangers. Wander down side streets. Eat more colours. Dabble in art. Take up space. Host more dinner parties. Write in my journal. Ask more questions. Volunteer my time. Be more present.

    I want to do all of this, not just tomorrow but every day. It’s a choice I make when I wake up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I become more than I was yesterday.

    Happy birthday! I can’t wait to see who I become tomorrow.

  • Am I a Good Daughter?

    Am I a Good Daughter?

    My mother is larger than life. Sometimes I worry that we are two big personalities fighting to be heard over one another. When we are together, she reads my tarot and asks me hard questions about the parts of myself I hide from the world.

    My father is reserved and aloof. Sometimes I worry I will overtake his voice completely when I talk. When we are together, we take long drives and unravel the coil of things previously left unsaid.

    They are good parents, but am I a good daughter?

    I dedicate too much time to imagining my parents talking about me to other people. I wonder what they say, and what they really think.

    When my mother is chatting with fellow moms about their children, how does she introduce me? Does she show them pictures of my graduation and describe the moment I walked across the stage? Does she tell them about the times I called her crying?

    If my father is asked about his family by his new coworkers, what role do I play in his life? Am I the distant daughter getting her degree in Montreal? Am I still his babygirl, bright-eyed and insatiably curious about the world?

    Do they leave out the messier parts? The 2 AM calls, the tears, the arguments, the money troubles? Do they lie about how much I call? The things I have gone through? The ways I have disappointed them?

    My parents have separately told me they wonder the same things in reverse. What do I tell people when they ask about my family? Do I neglect certain memories to paint a prettier picture, or am I brutally honest about the ways they have hurt me? They think their worst days are reflected in my hardest moments. My parents know they have done things that begged forgiveness.

    Parents hurt their children and children hurt their parents right back. I tell myself there’s no sense reliving the mistakes I made as recently as last month. I’ve spent a lifetime testing the boundaries of everyone around me, mother and father included. I broke the rules, however lax they were, and acted incredulous that they existed in the first place.

    I know they do the same, constantly deliberating their roles as parents and where they could have been different. My parents understand the weight of past generations, but they donʼt see what I see. I know my parents did not have easy lives and Iʼm grateful they worked so hard to make mine easier than they ever got to have. I see the cycles they broke, the boundaries they set, the unlearning they did. I know what my parents have sacrificed and I know they have cried over what they have lost. Sometimes it feels like I’m too aware of these sacrifices. They haunt me. Ghosts lurk in the hallways of my childhood home but I don’t know their names. My parents gave me not just life, but a good one. What did I ever do in return?

    Although my parents rarely interact, they seem to have come to a consensus on who I am. I’m told I’m hard-working, I’m strong, I’m someone to be proud of. It’s not about what they say, it’s me. I live in constant deliberation on whether or not I am a good daughter, despite never being able to articulate what a “good daughter” would look like. Sometimes it goes even further; with everything they did for me and everything they sacrificed, could it really be true that I was their daughter? This is despite the fact I am the spitting image of my mother at my age.

    I will never stop trying to be a good daughter. Not out of guilt, but love.

    There are so many things I never say because I don’t know how to start. Would my voice come out a whisper, giving back the space I demanded so frequently as a child, or would it be strong, a reminder of the independent woman they raised me to be? There are times I explore new languages, seeking the words that English seems to lack to describe our relationship. In the absence of such a voice, I write. I deliberate each special occasion on the right sequence of words to capture my gratitude and awe, then scratch a meaningful but ineffective version to send through the mail. Even now, I am scrutinizing each sentence I write.

    Sometimes, though, the simplest statements can answer the hardest questions.

    When I graduated from University, my parents briefly reunited to join my friends and me at a celebratory dinner. Walking fast, I was so determined to get to our reservation on time I nearly missed the fact that my parents were deep in conversation behind me. Taking no notice that I was listening now, they continued to discuss how proud they were of me and how relieved they were that they had clearly done something in raising me right.

    “We did a pretty great job didn’t we?” “Yes, we did.”

    Although to them it seemed to be a natural conclusion from 23 years of dedication and unconditional love to me it was revolutionary. They were proud of not only what I had done, but who I had become. I know now they have built a life for me where I can be whatever I want to be, and so I choose to be a good daughter.

    My mother and I have a ritual; she will envelop me in a hug and say “thank you for choosing me to be your mom,” I squeeze back hard enough to undo every mistake I’ve ever made and say “thank you for letting me be your daughter.”

    My father and I have a ritual; as I say goodbye again I apologize for living so far away, he says “I just miss you” and I cry once the train leaves the station.

    I will never stop trying to be a good daughter. Not out of guilt, but love. They deserve nothing less.

  • ‘Madness’, Medical Misogyny and Misdiagnoses: The Woes of the Chronically Ill Woman

    ‘Madness’, Medical Misogyny and Misdiagnoses: The Woes of the Chronically Ill Woman

    During my childhood, I can remember doctors dismissing my mother every time she brought up something about my health that was worrying her. It’s just growing pains. Kids hurt themselves all the time. She needs to get out more. It’s a bad cold. One doctor even suggested my hands’ recent malfunctions were because of my parents’ divorce (that happened when I was six)!

    In the eyes of my doctors, I went from an accident-prone kid to a mentally-ill teenager.

    When I was old enough to go to my appointments on my own, my mother resisted it. She was never the kind of mother to stop me from exploring my independence, so her diligence about the doctor’s office seemed weirdly out of character. ‘You know what you’re going to say, right? Don’t leave until they listen to you. Repeat exactly what you told me. Don’t take no for an answer. Trust what you are feeling and trust your body.’ I thought she was a hypochondriac, and so did my family doctor.

    They were relieved to deal with me instead of her. I would smile and nod along with whatever they said without ever asking questions. I didn’t understand what my mother had been trying to teach me. I let a lot of professionals tell me I was perfectly healthy even though I was struggling because I trusted them to know my body best. I got used to thinking, ‘that’s weird’, and going about my day in situations where most people would rush to a walk-in clinic.

    It only got worse as I aged. In the eyes of my doctors, I went from an accident-prone kid to a mentally-ill teenager. Every illness, pain and problem could be chalked up to the burden of puberty and a turbulent social life. When I complained about fatigue and a lack of sleep, I got lectured on bad sleep hygiene, but no one ever asked why a sixteen-year-old could sleep from 10 pm to 3 pm without stirring. Each month I wondered if I would mistake my appendix bursting for cramps because I was told periods hurt for everyone. My therapist suggested I try meditating and deep breathing, but I still ended every day feeling like I had been hit by a truck.

    Frustration bubbled in me from sixteen to nineteen years old. The doctors I saw didn’t see anything wrong with me. Every test came back normal. Eventually, they stopped listening to my symptoms altogether. I got a strong muscle relaxer to target my headaches and reboot my sleep schedule, and every new pain was solved by upping my dosage and drinking more water.

    After I aged out of my paediatric office, I resorted to going to walk-ins and demanding someone pay attention to me, damn it. After years of overworking my liver without any improvement, I weaned myself off my medication and started journaling the ebbs and flows of my body. For nearly two years, I’ve been bouncing from doctor to doctor. All the while, my body is breaking down even more.

    The fight is exhausting, but what makes it worse is that no one believes me. It’s the thing my mother wanted to hide from me, though she couldn’t make the world change overnight. I am graced with labels like ‘hysterical,’ ‘stressed,’ ‘mentally ill,’ and ‘sensitive,’ never to be heard and never to be believed.

    The fastest way to get more tests was to take up space in these offices that didn’t want me, plant my feet, and refuse to leave until someone gave me the courtesy of a reference. Like my mother had hoped, I learned to stand up for myself. But neither of us expected how little it would end up mattering. I was denied my medical records, had my appointments cancelled, placed on endless holds, hung up on, and abandoned by the places meant to give me answers.

    She gave me her spirit and her stubbornness – I used them every day.

    Through it all, my mother held my hand and rubbed my back. She told me I was strong, that this moment would pass; things would hurt less tomorrow. She drove me to doctor’s appointments and hugged me while I broke down in parking lots out of frustration. When I begged her to let me give up, she reminded me how much more fight I had in me. She gave me her spirit and her stubbornness – I used them every day.

    Sometimes we reminisce about all the places we have been and the things we have tried in order to fix my broken body. We can laugh at the ridiculously sexist things I have been told and the nonsensical diagnoses doctors have given me to usher me out the door faster. Secretly though, I know it hurts her to see how much I’m hurting. She calls me a piece of herself that she happily gave away; she feels all my pain as if it were her own.

    We both blame ourselves for the doctors of my youth and the failures of our medical system. Had she dragged along my father, taken up more space, demanded more things, cried, screamed, and sat on the floor of my doctor’s office, maybe I wouldn’t be the one doing these things today. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have mattered either way.

    We are women, I am chronically ill, and no amount of advocacy or motherly protection could have saved me.

    Originally published on Heroica Women.