Life in the fast lane

I tweeted and tumblr'd this, but there's a line in the last full paragraph of Mockingjay that completely and utterly destroyed me. I don't mean the usual "Oh look Lane's crying over fandom" thing that usually happens to me. This was a "Brian just had a real-life epiphany" moment. 

Big spoilers, heavy shit below the cut. 


I can't get into too much detail right now, because I'm on the verge of breaking down again. I still need to write something, though. 

My mom has always been somewhat distant. She's always had a problem embracing any kind of happiness or pleasure. She's gotten better over the years, but when I was younger she had long stretches where she was emotionally distant from myself and my brother. Chris always seemed to handle it better than me, but I always struggled with that. Even as an adult I stayed bitter over the strained and distant relationship I had with my mother. 

There was a reason, or so people told me. My mother was caught in the middle of the Khmer Rogue genocide in Cambodia. Watched as the rebels shot her father in the head. Ripped away from her family and put into a forced labor camp for several years. Escaped in the middle of the night and traversed minefields to flee into the safety of the Thailand refugee camps. It's psychological trauma, for the most part, the plays into our distant relationship. So I've been told. 

Tonight I was reading the end of Mockingjay. In the last full paragraph there's a single sentence. One that reduced me to a sobbing mess. 

I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. 

And right then, it all becomes clear. It isn't some sort of vague psychological trauma that caused this. It was fear. That's what everyone was trying to tell me but couldn't quite articulate. Every time I got into an argument with my mom and dad would try to explain what was running through her head. 

She feared- she still fears- that the same thing that happened thirty years ago could happen again. That her family and home could be taken away from her again. She fears getting close because the thought of having that all taken away from her a second time is a thought that fuels her every nightmare. 

I don't think for a moment that Suzanne Collins thought this line would impact me as much as it did. I know it wasn't the intention when she wrote it. But that one sentence... Twenty-three years of arguments, resentment, and anger instantly washed away and replaced with guilt and, most importantly, long overdue understanding.