A Gata Christie

Às vezes as pessoas ficam a olhar para mim, muito surpreendidas, a achar que eu devo ser tolinha por não passar a vida a queixar-me - parece que toda a gente passa a vida a queixar-se de tudo e mais alguma coisa, como é que eu posso parecer (quase) sempre feliz e dizer que está tudo bem? A verdade é que quando vivemos situações extremas percebemos como a maioria das lamentações que ouvimos à nossa volta não fazem sentido e isso, ao mesmo tempo, faz-nos ter mais consciência de como tantas vezes também nos queixamos de coisas sem importância. Aprendemos a relativizar. Eu já tinha percebido isso mas nunca tinha encontrado ninguém que o dissesse assim com esta clareza até ler este texto de Sophie Heawood, no The Guardian, onde ela explica algumas coisas sobre isto de se ser mãe sozinha: 

"(..) Living outside the nuclear narrative will create so many jarring moments with others that soon you won’t speak, only nod. You will do The Nod when the nursery sends your kid home with a Happy Father’s Day card that she’s been made to copy her name on to. You will employ The Nod when other mums say they know exactly what it’s like being a single parent because their lovely husband works abroad for up to two weeks at a time. You will employ The Nod when 20 of your friends offer to babysit – three will actually do it and the rest, when they see you at a party, will ask what you have done with the baby, to which you must always reply with these exact words: “I thought I left it at your house?”

Gradually, you will realise that you, too, have made other people do The Nod all your life. That you moaned about your mum to a friend whose mum was dead, that you complained about being skint to friends who’ll never earn what you do, that you phoned in sick with hangovers when a colleague who lives with a chronic pain condition wouldn’t dream of missing work. A lifetime of selfishness will open up before you like a seam. You will watch a friend lose her two-year-old, who dies for no reason in the night, and clutch your own child very, very tightly and thank God that she is here, and that the smell of her hair is such sweetness that even your nostrils are in love with her. She will become your levity and your gravity. You will be more than able to cope."