The Mom
No one can tell me I'm not efficient when I enjoy doing something.
I already have an eight-page outline for this play, and honestly, I feel like I'm only getting started.
I just made a little room for my caffeine addiction... I really need to get evaluated for ADHD. It would really explain why caffeine has always calmed me down instead of waking me up.
But I just found a song that is actually me.
Or rather...
The past version of me that I am leaving behind.
Bryce Savage – Truth or Dare
„I don't think you'd understand how I feel inside I am just a girl, and a girl is always, always fine”
„Broken once and broken twice She's been let down by her peers”
„She feels the weight of everything about to break But you won't see What's underneath Hide all the pain Cause they won't understand a thing anyway”
„She gives and she gives just to get nothing back Tells herself it's okay she doesn't need any of that But she knows, deep inside, it'd be nice, to feel seen To know that maybe one day she could be someone's everything”
„Just to try to feel enough Just to try to feel the love Love yourself before someone Babe you've been picking all the wrong ones Time to pick yourself for once”
„She knows how to heal others But can't seem to heal herself She'll keep giving out her pieces ‘Till she's nothing but a shell”
„And she's soft with everyone except for herself You couldn't tell that just underneath the surface is hell As she laughs through the pain Only way to stay sane A perfect picture held together by a broken frame”
It could really be about me.
It stabs deeply into my heart.
I honestly feel like I have lost my faith in love. Or at least in the idea that I can have the kind of love I want.
It makes me sad because I have so much love inside me that wants to find its way out. So much that I cannot give only to myself—it feels like an ocean.
And I cannot drink an ocean alone.
It is simply too much.
The tragedy is that my whole life I have felt too much and not enough at the same time.
Like I have been a living contradiction in everything.
Too masculine to be the "perfect" woman.
Too feminine to be only career-oriented and practical.
Too creative to live an average life.
Too rational to fully belong in the creative communities I have met.
Too spiritual to belong among atheists.
Too grounded to belong in spiritual communities.
Too free to live only by rules.
Too responsible to live like a savage.
Wanting security.
Wanting roots deep in the earth.
And at the same time wanting to fly in the sky, where I have always felt I belonged.
Too stubborn and too flexible at the same time to fit in anywhere.
Too loving and too independent at the same time.
Always balancing between two sides of life.
Always feeling both too much and not enough.
I gave so much because, just once in my life, I wanted to feel that I belonged somewhere.
That I wasn't standing alone.
I hid so much because, just once in my life, I wanted to feel worthy of belonging.
Not even love.
Belonging.
To someone.
To a community.
To a place I could truly call home.
And no matter how safe I feel within myself...
No matter how much I love myself...
No matter how much I pour into myself...
That desire to be understood, to belong somewhere, will always remain.
Because human beings were never meant to be alone.
We live in communities for a reason.
But now, let's look at the last supporting character because I only have three and a half hours left today, and I still have seventy-seven pages to read.
The Mother
She is 75 years old and a widow. She spent her entire life beside a husband who was emotionally distant. She deeply believes that it is a woman's duty to keep a marriage together and to sacrifice her own needs and dreams for the sake of her family.
She comes from a poor family where this pattern repeated itself for generations. She was the first person in her family to earn a university degree, and she worked her entire life. She could have become successful in her own right, but she always sacrificed herself for her husband and children—even when they neither needed nor wanted those sacrifices.
Her health is failing. She knows she does not have much time left, and she often thinks about what she achieved... and what she could have achieved.
She is afraid of her daughter's decision. She genuinely believes her daughter should save her marriage and have children. At the same time, she secretly admires her courage. But she cannot express it because she grew up in an emotionally distant family, where she learned that women have to be strong and carry the burdens of the world.
Throughout the story, she is deeply conflicted. She wants what is best for her daughter. She loves her deeply, yet that very love is what holds her back. She wants her daughter to choose the safest path. If she truly wants to change her life, she believes she should do it in the safest way possible—and stay in the relationship that no longer makes her happy.
She is not only worried about her daughter; she is also forced to face an uncomfortable truth: maybe she sacrificed her entire life for the wrong thing. Maybe life was never meant to be only a burden, and maybe she never should have carried everyone else's burdens for so long.
Deep inside, she envies her daughter.
She would never admit it.
Not even to herself.
But throughout the story, she quietly struggles with that feeling.
She expresses her love through acts of service but rarely gives compliments or hugs her daughter.
By the end of the play, she realizes that love is not measured by how much of yourself you destroy.
Her defining belief is:
"Life is about surviving and making things work, even when it hurts."