There's two people in this world that you remember the most: Your mother and the woman you marry. One makes you the man you are and the other loves you for it. My mother made me someone unique. My father helped, of course. There is no such living human without the chromosomes a father gives, but I am all of my mother. From her long slender fingers to her brain, I am Diana Reid's son. And of, that I am very proud. (and sometimes very scared.)
For the first years of my life, I was raised by two parents and it is not a time I recall very well. Due to my emotional stability or reasons I do not quite understand, my first eight years are a blur. I know my father tried to make me normal - to be his son and each time, I failed miserably. I was not a boy's boy. I did not like trucks or baseball. I did not like anything he liked.
For this alone, I blamed myself for years after his disappearance. Maybe if I were more like him, he could have stayed, but I was not. I was her in the male form, in a child.
I craved her knowledge. I loved how she would scoop me up into her world and read to me for days. I saw the things she saw and in it, I felt home. I soon began to be able to read faster than even she could, reading things that she'd only hope to. Different languages and dead forms. I craved it all. I craved knowledge that she didn't have and in return, I excelled faster than my peers. I was a child prodigy, but only because of her. Her genes and her passion. Her intensity.
When my father left, we spent days in a fog. I only left her bed to eat when I grew tired and to relieve myself. I did not want her to think that I was leaving her as well. I knew what that would feel like. I didn't want to leave her either. We were very much the same. We always here and for this, I took care of her as I took care of myself. She was my mother. She was me.
I grew into a man. I matured quickly. and at 18, I realized that there was nothing more that I could do. That as her son, I had to help her when she could not help herself. She was ill and I was not. I had to live my life in a way she would be proud. I joined the FBI a few years latter. I helped people a living. My lucid mother would be proud; the paranoid woman who lived in her would kill me. When I told her, she called me a traitor, that she could no longer see me. I have yet to visit her again.
My mentor has set me up on a date. He gave me tickets to a football game, in return to ask a friend. A beautiful woman. Blonde hair, blue eyes, very intelligent. This is where the other woman I mentioned comes in. I am not saying that I will marry this woman, don't get me wrong. I am not a foolish man, I know that one date means nothing, but I have read every word of Shakespeare and Austen and somewhere in me, I think must lie a romantic.
My mother used to tell me that when you're ready, the woman of your future will walk into your life. This woman walked in years ago and from the moment I saw there, there was something inside of me spark. She reminds me somewhat of my mother and in a way, that terrifies me and sets me as ease. It's an intense paradox that only furthers my fascination. She's warm and loving. She's passionate in her work. She spends each day, looking for the answers and worries about her choices during the night. She's dedicated and yet soft. She intrigues me greatly.
She calls me Spence. The only one on the team to do so. The only one in this life. And it's strange how it makes me feel. It's only meant to be amicable thing. A nickname among friends. I am not the only she has nicknamed in our group, and yet it makes me feel different still. I am not Doctor Reid to her, but just Spence. I am not the 24 year old certified genius, but just a man. Just a man that she agreed to go to a football game with. Just a man she might find interesting. Or so I hope.
I wonder if I should tell her about anything or everything. I wonder if this is even a good idea at all to go and yet, I can't help but want to do it anyway. Is that foolish? Is it just an effect of emotion? I don't know and in all honestly, it doesn't phase me as much as it should.
I hope to look back on this and think that there was a purpose to writing it. Maybe, when I do, I will know more than just the love of a mother. Maybe I will know the love of the other. For when you look back, what does anyone really see that have succeeded at this life?
Two people and I already know one.
