Prompt Shop Bop

"Good Enough" - Kataa

by Little Mix

"Guess I'm still not good enough"

Kataa tries, now that she has worked to move past desperately craving her mother's approval, to take pride in the fact that she is not good enough for her mother. Msaliti is a terrible, terrible lioness, and she is an even worse excuse for a family member (as a sister, mother, and mate). If her mother doesn't value her and see her as being good enough, then Kataa should take that as a compliment, because why would she want the approval of someone so nasty and cruel? It's hard, of course, overcoming the years and years she spent pulling every stunt imaginable to see even a momentary look of approval on her mother's face, but Kataa has put in so much effort to move past that point and has made tremendous progress. With her friends by her side, even when Kataa is feeling lost without that goal to guide her anymore (or when her mother succeeds in doing something to hurt Kataa - most likely intentionally, though she has no way or proving that - and dredge up the past), she knows that she is growing to be better than she ever was before. Msaliti was hurtful, spiteful, and rude, consistently making her daughter feel small, insignificant, and worthless, and Kataa was never going to be good enough. However, that doesn't matter, because Kataa doesn't need to be good enough to gain her mother's approval; she is good enough the way she is (or, more accurately, the way she is trying to be, without the cruelty brought on by her mother's behavior and method for raising her), and that is all that counts. On top of that, Kataa knows that, in her friends' eyes, she is good enough, and that that will never change, so long as she keeps trying to be the best version of herself that she can be. She doesn't need to change herself to gain their approval; if, beyond pointing out the bad qualities her mother raised her to have (and guiding her through the process of letting those things go and being a better person because of it), someone thinks she needs to change who she is to be good enough in their eyes, then they are never going to be worth it. It's a hard lesson to learn, however, slowly but surely, Kataa is coming to understand that fact. She still isn't good enough, at least in Msaliti's opinion, but that's okay, because she doesn't need to be.

"Does it burn knowing I used all the pain?"

However, despite mostly moving on from seeking her mother's approval, Kataa still wants to believe that the progress she has made in moving past the damage her mother caused within her upsets Msaliti. Granted, her mother still has made snide remarks and what not, egging her daughter on in small ways to try and get her to snap or come crawling back (or so Kataa assumes, as Msaliti has never explicitly said why she continues to torment her daughter despite Kataa saying she has moved on, if she is even intending to be upsetting her daughter still), but Kataa is not sure that her mother has at all been impacted by her decision to stop trying to please her (let alone if she was impacted to the same extent that Kataa was). Despite this, she hopes she has been. Kataa wants to know if it upsets her mother that she has done so much to turn her life around, to start making the right decisions and has used all of her pain to help her become a better person. She wants to believe that that could be true, that Msaliti really could be feeling that way, because it would be the best, most satisfying revenge she can think of without being overly petty (though she isn't sure it's possible to be all that petty in a bad relationship formed on a basis of manipulation, because in that scenario, the manipulator probably deserves to suffer and be angry). The pain of her past and the way her mother treated her has been one of the primary motivators for why Kataa has put so much work into trying to better herself; she doesn't know what kind of person she would be if those things hadn't happened, and she isn't sure that she wants to find out. That pain has pushed her to be better than she ever would have been while she continually strove to get her mother's approval, and it may seem spiteful to use it as a reason for being better, but that doesn't make it any less powerful as a motivator (nor does it necessarily make it inappropriate for being the reason for self-improvement, even if there are definitely better, more noble reasons to pursue growth and attempt to improve yourself as a person). She would love to know that Msaliti is upset seeing how Kataa has used  all the pain she went through to propel her to new heights she (probably) never would have achieved otherwise.

"Does it hurt knowing you're fuel to my flame?"

Kataa doesn't fool herself into thinking that maybe Msaliti is regretful for what she's done. She knows her mother will never apologize, never think that anything she did was wrong, which honestly just makes her seem very pitiful (despite not warranting any actual pity, seeing as she really is an awful person). However, Kataa does hope that Msaliti is angry over the progress Kataa has made. She did not seem to care at their initial confrontation; despite her daughter calling her out and telling her that she has been a horrible mother (and why that is the case), Msaliti didn't seem to care, as if she was completely unfazed by any of the words that were exchanged. Kataa came out of that talk as the only one visibly upset by what had gone down, and she has never gotten a good read on the situation since. She would love to know that her mother was angry, especially over the fact that Kataa no longer bent to her every whim in a desperate attempt to please her, whether it be because she realized she missed that or because she felt that Kataa's accusations were unjust. Kataa has been doing quite well for herself since cutting off her toxic, one-sided relationship with her mother, and she just wishes it had impacted her mother anywhere near the same amount that it had impacted her, because for any normal lion, it would have.