A little life lesson

I’ve always been close to my parents. My Dad was the single biggest influence on my life without doubt. Any major decision I’ve made has his loving hand guiding me imprinted on it – which country to go on exchange to, which university to go to, which course to study. Even having a crack at this writing malarkey is his doing - thanks dad ;) . And my Mum, well, we ring each almost every day, tell each other everything (ok I might have kept one or two things from her over the years) and when I was younger she and I spent countless hours on the end of my bed in deep discussion.

I always thought I knew them inside out; the dark corners of their less than idyllic childhoods; their lives before children; their hopes and fears. I thought I understood exactly who they were and where they came from.

Until last night.

After a pleasant family dinner I witnessed a conversation between Mum and Nan (her mum) that has changed what I thought I knew about why Mum is the way she is. And it knocked the wind out of me.

Not the revelations themselves, so much, but the fact that I had always so strongly (arrogantly?) believed I had my Mum’s motivations, insecurities, lack of confidence all sussed out. And I was wrong!

I’ve always prided myself on ‘seeing through people’. On understanding their behaviour. A great skill to have as a writer.

As a writer I can see through my characters’ motivations and inspirations. Even when my characters surprise me, as they inevitably do, when they take a twist I wasn’t expecting, I always understand how or why they take that turn. That light bulb moment as my pen dances across the page and suddenly Nicole zigs when I thought she would zag, and the voice in my head says ‘yes, of course, that’s exactly what she’d do’.

As a daughter, evidently, my vision and understanding aren’t quite as honed. I’m now seeing my Mum, and my Nan, in a very different light and my understanding of them has changed.

It’s never a bad thing to realize you don’t know everything. It really isn’t ;). And this is a life lesson that I will take and try to apply to all areas of my life. If I don’t know those closest to me as well as I thought, then maybe when dealing with that rude shop assistant, or that mother from school who boils my blood, or my in-laws who… (well let’s not get personal!), I can just pause and consider maybe there’s something else going on that I’m not aware of.

And I can certainly apply it to my writing. GO DEEPER! Just when I think I know my characters inside out, I can dig a little further, peel back another layer. There may be something hiding there I didn’t see before. 

S
keep cahsing those pavements