Image via Wikipedia"Are you my mother?"
Nearly every single one of us would remember that book from our childhood. You know, the book where the little bird who is lost goes around to every species of creature asking if they were it's mother. And this was the exact same question I finally had to ask Marisa recently..........are you my mother?
Some of you may recall that back in November I wrote a blog "Dial M for Maternal" Where I explained my theory about my relationship with Marisa and that I believed that this mysterious connection between us is one that is maternal.
However, there is a tremendous difference between writing your theory on this blogsite in english and writing an email in spanish directly to Marisa to tell her your theory. This may sound nerve-wracking but it actually wasn't....because in the recent days her maternal instinct and behavior began manifesting more and more. So things were, perfectly set up for me to finally reveal to her what I thought was happening.
Ever since November, I had been observing her carefully to see if my theory was right. But it wasn't until her move to Uruguay that her maternal instinct really became obvious and I was able to differentiate her from the rest of my friends. The biggest thing that tipped me off that somewhere inside that woman's subconscious, I was her child was that incredible sense of wanting to protect me. And her unsual level of anxiety whenever there was any situation where she thought I might get hurt.
It was in that moment that I realized that if I don't tell her, we are going to forever have this kind of a tension in our relationship where she is unknowingly treating me like one of her kids and wanting from the love and affection that parents want form their kids, but never getting that because I'm treating her like a normal friend.
So I was at a cross road.....I could decide not to tell her and live with this tension or tell her not knowing how she was going to react. But I have never been one to back down from a challenge so one fine day, I sat down in front of my computer and using all my prowess as a writer, wrote to her a beautifully worded email in spanish to tell her my theory. All I can say is that I gambled.....and WON! Or better said, BOTH of us won :)
So it turns out that Mama bear has found herself with another little bear snuggled cozily by her side. A new cub has been born at the zoo....
