Prompt Shop Bop

Kataa - "Good Enough"

by Little Mix

"Don't look back, don't need your regrets"

Those are the words Kataa is trying so hard to live her life by in terms of her relationship with her mother. Despite moving forward, Kataa keeps looking backward. Sometimes, it's because she wonders what she could have done to change things. What decisions could the young lioness have made that would have shifted the tides and created a different outcome? Was there a universe out there where she did not make the same mistakes, did not drift down a path that led to her becoming a terrible person all in a foolish attempt to garner her mother's love? Or, even worse, was there a world out there where her mother did love her? Kataa wasn't sure which idea was worse: that there was a world out there where Msaliti loved her, and yet she did not get to live in that one and instead never experienced a mother's love, or that there was no world where Msaliti loved her, because her mother never would? Both options are equally as horrific and disheartening for poor Kataa. Other times, she looks backwards because she has taken steps back; although she has never slipped back into being the terrible person she was when she was obsessed with gaining her mother's affection, she does not always manage to make progress forward. Sometimes, Kataa regresses, because no one is able to redeem themselves and fix their flaws all at once; it's a journey, and that journey is never a smooth one. The quest to become a better person will always have bumps and hiccups along the way, times where it feels like you are back where you started (or at least not as far from that point as you were), and Kataa has had to work to accept that. She wants so desperately to be better that she can be quite disheartened when she slips up, and it is only with the help of her friends that her progress forward is not completely halted due to her wallowing in feelings of failure. Then there are the times that Kataa looks backwards just to see how far she has come, on those occasions where she is doing well and not slipping up and regressing back into the bitter lioness she used to be. She has so many regrets about her prior actions, and wishes that she could change how things went, but more than that, she just wishes that Msaliti would regret how she treated her. However, Kataa does not need her mother to regret her actions in order to move on. Even after she accepted that Msaliti would never love her, not the way she loved her sister, Cleopatra, Kataa still wanted her mother to regret how she acted. However, as time has gone on, Kataa has come closer and closer to fully moving beyond that desire (as much as one can move past the hole left by a mother neglecting you in favor of your sibling) and truly believing it when she says that she does not need her mother's regrets, because she is good enough, whether Msaliti acknowledges it or not. Her worth is not solely determined by her mother, and someday soon, Kataa thinks she might finally, genuinely believe that.

"Thank God you left my love behind"

It's funny, but Kataa has come to a point where she is almost (but not quite) thankful for the fact that her mother neglected her. After all, who knows what she could have become if her mother had loved her? Cleopatra isn't a good indication, in part because Kataa has not seen her in so long and therefore does not know how she is doing, but also because Cleo did not grow up in a pride with Msaliti. She got to grow up with their father, Pango, stealing both parents' love from Kataa and leaving her with nothing. Maybe Kataa's life would be better, but knowing her luck, things would just be even worse. Msaliti is psychotic, something she knows all too well; Kataa is relieved that she got away from her when she did, escaping out from under her paw and allowing herself to grow independent of her mother and make her own choices that are not dependent on what will and will not get even the smallest bit of attention from her. However, though she has not quite gotten to a point where she can be thankful for the fact that her mother did not love her, Kataa is thankful that her mother never accepted her love. Perhaps those two things are contingent on each other, and there isn't all that much of a difference between them, but Kataa has reached a point where she is grateful for the fact that her mother never accepted her love for her. It was part of what made Kataa so bitter for so long; after all, her mother not only refused to show any affection towards the one daughter she still had, but on top of that, she would not even acknowledge the fact that Kataa loved her. In fact, she seemed to scorn it. When Kataa finally cleaved herself of their toxic relationship, Msaliti showed no visible signs of being affected by it, and as much as it pains her to admit, Kataa honestly believes Msaliti was completely unaffected by it (or at least that Msaliti believed she'd be completely unaffected at that time, though maybe her perspective has changed now). However, it is the fact that Msaliti would not even accept that Kataa loved her and wanted her to actually be a mother to her that pushed Kataa to finally see things clearly and remove herself from the toxic cycle she was locked into with her mother. Msaliti didn't want her love, and when Kataa was able to see that, it was the final straw to make her realize that what was going on was not okay, and that she deserved better. Kataa shouldn't have to prove that she was worthy enough to love Msaliti or be loved by her; she was good enough as she was.