Wanting

Since we were young, we have wanted a lot of things, and we often go out of our way just to get the things we want. I realized, taking a good look in my life, we can go on and on about wanting things and never getting them and it doesn’t really matter. There will come a point in a persons life that all the things you want and will ever want will be so mediocre to the things we need. So we need to differentiate things if we just want them or need them.

I was looking at my daughters beautiful face during dinner tonight, and for the first time in so many months I really saw her. I looked at the sparkle in her big questioning eyes, the innocence of her smile, the button of her nose and the quirkiness of her every gesture, I looked at her and appreciated everything that I see, that’s when I realized I do not just want to give her a better life, I needed to give her a better life.

That’s when I started getting sad, because apart from taking in her beauty, I realized because I felt the need to provide her a better life I will have to leave her on January for six whole months to find work and Singapore and establish a life there in preparation for her arrival there. And I thought, can I do it? Can I leave her here? Do I have the strength to walk away from her when its time for me to go? Thinking about all these things choked me up with tears.

I have always spoken to my husband about us needing to take this step, and that it will only be six months and we will be together again forever. But when I looked at my daughter tonight I wondered how I will be able to take the actual first step-walking away from her, how it will be like every night for six months without touching her, without kissing her, sleeping without her by my side. I think it will not be so hard for her because she is young, she might not even remember being left alone for a few months, and that’s where I pull my strength from. But I remembered that’s the future, she will not remember it ever happened in the future, I forgot to think about how painful it will be for her, in the present. I forgot that even though I feel the need to provide for her, she has needs of her own.

She needs me, she needs her mom and her dad. She wouldn’t understand the meaning of needing and wanting for a long time and it would hurt her wanting to have me and I will not be there. Anyone can do what I do for her, anyone can give her baths, or wipe her sweat, anyone can make her blow her nose on a handkerchief, or tie her hair, anyone can sleep beside her at night or hug and kiss her, but she will want me to do it, she will want her mommy to kiss her knees when she falls down, she will want me to brush her hair after taking a bath, she will want me to do things for her that she is used to having me do for her and I would not be here, and it would hurt her. And I am hurting just thinking about the hurt that our need to provide for her will cause her.

How do I explain to a little girl how important what I am going to do is for her, when right now all she really knows is that spongebob is yellow and patrick star is pink, when all she understands is that mommy is here and daddy is in Singapore. How do I take that step knowing that I will hurt her, knowing that she will cry for how many nights because mommy is not there to kiss her goodnight, and mommy will not be greeting her every morning for a whole six months.

I am torn between needing to provide a better life for her and wanting to stay so that she wouldn’t hurt. It should be an easy decision to make, I need to do this, it is not permanent, we will be together again after six months, but that is the future, what about the sadness now?