Because she listened...

I’d had the worst day ever in college and hated everything about everything. Almost in tears because I was stuck with a bunch of superficial, snobby, miss high society girls and for me, being in a girls college was punishment enough for not meeting my expectations. Yet mum always seem to make things right no matter how bad the day had been. That day was no different, she’d been waiting patiently for me to get home. She opened the door for me and asked me how the day had been, I snapped “do you even care? Why do you ask, you can’t do anything about it can you?” She looked at me in daze, trying to understand what had led to the outburst, was it just a bad day or was something else going on underneath all the happy laughter she’d been witness to throughout the year.

I shut myself in the room for as long as I could. She gently knocked, “can I come in?” She asked. “Mum I don’t have the energy to fight with you about anything right now, can we please not talk.” I said through the door. “I just wanted to see if you were okay” she said in all earnestness.

With the door now ajar, we sat talking, I telling her how much I hated being in that place and how it had started to put me in a dark corner and her telling me “then let’s get you out of there, I’ll handle it with dad.”

That was all it took. The darkness lifted. She gave me the warmest hug that kept Delhi winters at bay. The hug that showed, no matter what, she’s always there to hear me out. I might have my tantrums and days when things seem bad, but she’ll always be there heeding to my cries, my worries and my anxieties.