Wren

Chapter twenty nine: Let me fix this

*This is a rather long chapter between Millie and her mother. There is a-lot to take in. I am putting this up today as my son has chicken pox (as of this morning) and so the rest of the week I will not be here. This is about three chapters in length though, so enjoy. I have not had time to edit this so apologies for any daft mistakes* see you soon! 🐓😬😷🤒

My mothers home was a piece of stunning architecture from the Victorian age, it was built on a hill at the heart of Eugene. Still to this day I didn't know how my mother afforded it, a home so hauntingly beautiful. It had magnificent panoramic views of the city of Eugene and the surrounding hills that she could enjoy from her lounge, the parlour, or indeed the sun room down stairs. The house had four bedrooms and an attic room which now I had grown up and out, she used for work. We had lived in this house since I was little, perhaps as long as I can remember, and my memories and childhood are in its strong wooden walls, in the antique mouldings that I would run my fingers over, the delicate wallpaper that I traced with my eyes every meal time, and the echo, always an echo, because in a house fit for a large family, we were the only two inside of it.

Somehow in a ridiculously large house, my mother filled every room, her petite frame and small stature you wouldn't think filled the pantry let alone the entirety of the house. When I lived with her I always felt kind of like a guest of hers there, and other times, an inconvenience, it wasn't that she was cold with me all of the time, she did show love and concern, and the fact that she pushed me so hard to strive as a child always made me feel like she cared, she cared enough to want more for me.

The only words I can think to describe it, was that my mother had a detachment from me, something was missing that shouldn't be, and despite her creating my image and moulding me like the architects did of this house, to be magnificent and better than she could imagine, I wasn't.

I am Millicent Dawson, groomed to be the next best thing, a professor by a young age, breaking records and smashing them nationally. I am academic, smart, quick, neat, punctual, a natural with my second parent, psychology, and yet....

I am Millicent Dawson, an avid reader of tabloids, lover of trash TV, pop tarts and junk food, I can't cook to save my life and I hate dressing up for work. I love flannel and denim and never get to wear it. I want to work with my hands and not with my head. I am a psychologist by my mothers hand, but inside I'm dying to be what I've always wanted to be...a carpenter. Yes, a carpenter. If you should venture into my mothers garage, you will find a door hidden by shelves, and behind those shelves and through that door is a workshop, my workshop, and inside of there you find and smell the scent of cedar and pine, and an array of objects I have created over the years when my head got a little heavy and my hands got a little eager to work.

I am Millicent Dawson, and truth be told I am many things and yet none... I don't feel like I own a single part of my professional life, it is my mothers, so is my academic career, so was my schooling and my childhood, the only time I remember having a choice was perhaps my infancy when I got to pick out a toy to take on a vacation, a brand new toy, and I still had it, a bear named Joe.

I needed more Joe's in my life, more choice, more control, god I needed to take it back, my mother wasn't working with mind control, I had a choice, I just had to stand up to her and make it.

The moment I started to see Wren I felt myself taking back the control, making poor decisions, but they were mine and so I continued to make them, because she made me happy and she made me feel... free. My romantic life was mine, and although I had failed to find love before, my partners and my sexuality were parts of my identity that did belong to me, and now I have found love, I couldn't let that go.

Wren was my undoing, and unravelling, and I welcomed it with open arms the moment I realised she made me feel the freedom I craved.

I should have immediately stopped contact with her, the part of me moulded by my mother would have, but Wren awakened the parts of me that had lie dormant and with each meeting she brought me back to myself, until I grew stronger and more confident, and now, here I was, wanting to reclaim it all.