It had been a few weeks since my first meeting with Nysa and through that time we spoke of her future plans — Her applications for her Masters Degree in the US, her choice of subjects and everything else that went in to the prep. Then one day she walked in and there was a shift. She began talking about her relationship with her mother. 

“I have grown up hearing my mother compare me to all my cousins who are small and petite and called me big boned.” 

“‘Look at Ria, she’s so beautiful,’ my mother would say and, in my head, I would think, ‘I only have dad and your genes to thank for the way I am.’”

She finally let the flood gates open as she expressed how she always felt her mother wished she looked different. That she wanted her attention, but rarely got it. Instead her mother would treat her brother like he was a prince. Her father was different, he spent time with Nysa, treated her like she was intelligent and valued her opinion. “I feel like my mother gets annoyed when Dad and I talk shop.” She admitted because she was working with her father at the time. 

We had just scratched the surface, but finally the insecurities she housed for so long were getting ready to leave home and so was she.