A Taste of Delusion

de·lu·sion

[dih-loo-zhuh-n]
-noun

1. a mistaken or misleading opinion, idea, belief, etc: he has delusions of grandeur

2. psychiatry: illusion {see also: hallucination} a belief held in the face of evidence to the contrary, that is resistant to all reason

3. the act of deluding or state of being deluded 

-vb
13. to give birth to or produce
14. to nurture,  protect, etc.

1. a mistaken or misleading opinion, idea, belief, etc

We would arrange “Girls’ Days” when we could go out shopping, have lunch, and just talk. She would tell me about work and her marital problems, I would tell her about school and various gossip. We were friends. Friends. Looking back now I realize that she was living teenage years that were ‘stripped’ from her, or whichever way she chose to look at her poor decisions. We would go to movies together, shop for clothes, drink (underage for me) together, even curse at one another. She used to tell me that she would ‘never in a million years curse in front of her mother’, but she encouraged the behaviour from me. She started borrowing my clothes without asking (much too small for her anyways), and buying me revealing outfits that I wasn’t comfortable wearing. One Christmas she got us matching hot pink Playboy Bunny pants. I wore them as pyjama bottoms. I have a memory of being invited to a friend’s birthday party in high school. It fell on the same Saturday that we had our ‘Girls’ Day’ planned. I told her about it and asked her to reschedule. She pouted for weeks on end about how my ‘friends’ were more important than her. She would ask me advice about her marriage...or parenting her son...as if I were a close friend or coworker of hers. In her mind we were friends...I had enough friends...

-n
1. a female who has given birth to offspring
6. a female or thing that creates, nurtures, protects, etc, something

2. psychiatry: illusion {see also: hallucination} a belief held in the face of evidence to the contrary, that is resistant to all reason

I had decided to become pregnant. It was my only chance at having children. She decided that this made her old. She looked desperately for ‘cool’ names that seemed younger. She would text message me suggestions from cultures all over the globe. None of them seemed appropriate. Why Yaya if we weren’t Greek? Why Momi if we weren’t Inuit? Despite her only seeing me twice during my pregnancy (once was when we helped Dad move out of their house, once was when she brought her new boyfriend and my replacement – his granddaughter – to meet me) I asked her about her plans for my labour. She wanted me to text her after it was all over. Let me know how it went. I was disappointed, but I honoured her request. She called me after she got the message, asked the required questions, and then expressed her disappointment that I had an epidural when she had done it au naturelle both times. She came down to my house two days later to see my daughter. She stayed about an hour and then left. It would be the only time she has seen either of my children. In emails later, I would be blamed for the relationship dissolving. “Too preoccupied” with my new life to make time for her, it became more and more obvious that after the spotlight was no longer on her, she no longer wanted to be in the play.

moth·er 
mə{thuline}-ər

3. the act of deluding or state of being deluded 

She dramaticized our relationship’s death by playing the victim to her friends. She would make special efforts to hurt me, texting to ask if I was married because she ‘didn’t know’, spreading lies and rumours about Brother and I, plotting with her friends to put us on the spot, and then she would send polite emails – inquiring about the state of my life. Awkwardly she would continue to send Christmas gifts, mostly for the children. Labelled with nicknames she had never called them, signed by a person they’ve never known. She would have to pass them through a string of people, as if we were all children and this was a game of broken telephone, because she has no idea where I live... as I have no idea where she lives. Cutting herself off from us all, she began a new life. Nothing to tie her down or hold her back from her wildest dreams, she is finally free from the all the burdens having a family gave her, the age group it placed her in, and the adulthood she never wanted.

Now, she paints her nails pink.