My first deities

I still remember the first day I realized my parents were just humans.

They weren’t super humans or alpha adults. They were regular, but somehow being parents knighted them with a world of responsibility. They weren’t perfect beings and they weren’t always right and they had doubts, this I know now, but there was a point where everything pointed to the contrary.

My parents, in my head, were the unshakable of the unshakable. I always counted on my mum to make things happen. Every dream of mine that I’ve dropped at her feet has come true. God was 5”10 with eyes like mine and shiny black hair. God had stubby little fingers and a cute button nose and an amazing laugh. God was my mother.
A human but also magic.

Sometimes, God was my father. A slip of a man with a loud, booming voice. He was a chatterbox, a storyteller, maker of the world’s best fried dumplings and somehow I could always always always trust him to make everything happen even when I didn’t see it. God was from St. Elizabeth and drove a rickety old pickup. God was my father.

But they’re not gods. They’re just people. Just like me. They cried. And they got sick and they had feelings. Can you imagine? Feelings. They were always mummy and daddy. It wasn’t until after they split that I realized that their world wasn’t far beyond mine. It wasn’t in some unfathomable realm.

My mother had moved out and I remember my father asking me to proof read a message he was sending to my mum because she wouldn’t pick up the phone. I was his little proof reader back then. Even now he’ll still call me and ask me to check something for him.

But yeah, they fell in love and they hurt and they cried about it just like I do when I fancy myself to be in love. They had desires and thoughts separate from being my parental units and I think realizing that I didn’t have a monopoly on their lives helped me have actual relationships with them.

It wasn’t just “I love you because you’re mummy and daddy.” It wasn’t “I love you because I’ve known you forever.” It was “I love you because I know you. *I see you” I see and all your flaws and I’ve reflected on all the things you’ve done wrong and all the ways you’ve watered me and stifled me and I still love you.

Love,
Vanessa