Inner Child

I lost my one shot at unconditional love, because my mother deserted me. Too young to know the reasons, which may, undoubtedly, have been valid, I was left with an eternal feeling of abandonment, which seeped into my being. I see a small child staring ahead, alone, dangling a tattered teddy by its arm. Dried tears on her cheeks, and then suddenly sobbing again - lost. No worried parent comes to find her, but she is eventually scooped up by a stranger. The stranger tries to love her: she has new clothes, a home and a ‘good education.’ There is a cost though, and the love she seems to receive has a price - conditions: She must be perfect, pretty, clever, a dancer, a university graduate, a success. Never enough, or that was her impression, an ill-founded fear of abandonment and imperfection, awaiting surrection at the slightest tectonic shift, cast adrift If expectations were not met, goals left unaccomplished, deadlines missed. And now, as I reflect in older age, I see the race I’ve run and the battle it became: An eternal game I could never win…… or perhaps it is won, as I take the hand of the lonely child holding the tattered teddy, and love her - unconditionally.