This is really strange, I realised it yesterday evening and woke up at 2am today, probably to think about it. Did it ever happen to you that you woke up early if you have an issue to think about? That happens to me sometimes. It feels like my brain decided that working out what is happening in my life is more important than sleeping.

So that’s how I feel now: like an adult. Not that I wasn’t an adult before, I own my flat since 2013, live in a foreign country since 2008, I think, I cook, clean and work. I am certainly a functional adult, but somehow I only feel now that I can really be myself and organise my life in a way that suits me.

I loved my mum, don’t get me wrong, but we were so different it’s actually incredible that we managed to find a common ground. I sometimes wonder if she didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about her, I mean whether I wasn’t the only person in the family that could offer her some normality so she tolerated me even though she didn’t understand me and didn’t agree with my choices. That’s how I often felt about her.

I needed to make constant adjustments for our relationship to work. Yes, she loved me, but she didn’t understand me that well. It felt like there was no space for me to really be myself. It felt like I needed to be a child for this to work.

It feels to me like even though I only saw my mum like twice a year and sometimes didn’t talk to her for two weeks at a time, her expectations still had a massive impact on who I was and how I felt.

So now, when she’s not there any more, I suddenly feel like I can become a real adult. I wonder how this is going to impact choices I make now and whether possibly I’ll be more daring in my endeavours.