Love Gone Awry

William was commenting that Coco is unmotivated in her studies or doing anything for that matter and he surmised that it could be because I have been suppressing her interest.

She loves painting as a child, but I told her she can't do art. Whenever she wants to draw or paint, I would ask her to do her academic work first before embarking on the painting. However, due to her lack of motivation and interest, she doesn't finish her work quickly, and so by the time she finishes it (if she ever does), it was time for bed.

I was telling a chatfriend about this, and I asked myself why I am depriving Coco of the things she likes to do when I love her so much.

And I realised that deep down, I have this great fear that she might become another me, or trod the path that I had taken, and suffer the way I have.

In the heart of hearts, I greatly despise myself.

I have never been clever. In fact, I genuinely feel that I am stupid. Although a friend doing his master's in phychology did a 'very refined' intellligence test on me and concluded that I was smarter than 83% or 87% of the Americans, I was never convinced. I am able to remember the figure/s although I am never a number person only because I thought the result ridiculous and I have to remember it to remember how ridiculous and laughable the test was.

For all the love I have for her, I cannot allow her to be like me, or go through the things I had.

That is why I distant her from art - a subject that I had loved when I was a student.

I did Art at O level, not because I was fantastic in art, but because I was weak academically. I couldn't do Science or Home Economics, so I was placed in an Art class.

I only appeared good in Art because most of my classmates were mediocre in it.

Even then, I didn't get an A for Art at O level.

At NIE, I chose Art among Art, Music and Social Studies to study as a non-core subject because I wanted to do well at the Diploma level. I knew very little about music and between Social Studies and Art, Art was the obvious choice.

Art is very time-consuming. But because I liked it and enjoyed it, I was willing to spend a lot of time on it.

I don't want Coco to spend so much time on Art and neglect her studies. I cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that she is walking towards the cliff.

However, I find that Coco doesn't seem to have any salient interest in anything.

I find that quite scary. To live a life without passion.

And I don't want to be the reason that ruins her life.

I did a scrapbook for her. One of the pages had a self-made tiny envelope. In it was a card that had these words,"For all the things I'd like you to be, my greatest wish for you is to be what you want to be."

In my anxiety to give her the best, I have forgotten what it meant to be a mother, and be there for her only when she needs me. I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to take over the driver's seat and direct where she should go for her.

I truly love her. And my love comes so close to destroying her, because of a lack of love for myself.