When I go home, I get depressed.
That’s not fair.
When I go home I am depressed, and I have something to blame it on besides myself.
“Home” is Seattle, and my mother will be happy to read this.
Mom hates LA. Well, mom hates LA like people from LA hate LA, which is to say she wants to be burned by the sun. I wear sunscreen every day. I won’t get wrinkles; I won’t show signs of wear. Why should time speak for me, I want to scream my story at a wall, as quietly as possible, I want to only ever have to whisper, I want to live one day at a time, and I don’t want to age a second while doing this. That’s to say I’m scared of changing. Mom hates LA because she knows it’s changing me. I say it’s not; I’m shrinking every day.
Mom looked at a picture I showed her of a toddler and said instantly that looks like an LA baby. She was smiling in a color-coordinated outfit and had no wrinkles. Of course, LA, baby. I sulked for an hour because I thought this was all a gesture about me.
I take everything personally, I’m selfish in that way.
But I’m not one of those, they all say (“they” is me, see, I like to blame my changing on you). I’m different, I’m from Seattle. I boast, Seattle. I’m proud: Seattle. I hate Seattle (but only when I’m there). I wear Seattle like a badge, Seattle wears me like a raincoat, what an obvious comparison to make. Of course, Seattle leaves me out to dry.
When I go home, I feel depressed. That’s not fair. When I go home I feel depressed, and I have someone to blame it on besides myself.
Mom tells me my credit card got charged three times for the same thing (a pair of silver metallic heels, but she doesn’t need to know that). I tell her I already know (in bitter tone because I’m sulking that she didn’t let me move my flight back to LA earlier, so that I can be alone in a house I’m afraid of, and we both know I won’t be any happier there than I am sad here). She says sorry, I was trying to take one thing off your to-do list (remind me to tell you about my to-do lists later — ah, another thing to do). I avoid via bullet points and unanswered texts.
I cry that I’m stuck in Seattle. I post an Instagram story of the skyline: “<3 home”.
I tell my mom. It’s not that I’m not grateful. I whisper it a million times, her knees on my floor, her head on my pillow. It isn’t true.
You know that I love you. This is.
It’s that it is just so gray here, and mom looks to the plastic depression lamp a doctor instructed me to get back when I was in high school that sits in its boxed unused, failed. By that I mean, it didn’t fix me. Sure, it never could have worked. I mean, I was sure it never would have worked — I didn’t want it to. Here, I want to say something about collecting dust. Here, I want to say this is me messy-writing. This is me wanting to have something to complain about. This is me trying to apologize. This is my ode to the hardest (most glorious) feeling I know: the feeling of home. This is still in progress.
I tell mom she’s cheap. She tells me she didn’t have much growing up.
I tell her I buy things to cope. She knows I need better ways to heal.
I wear my trauma like a coat, I play my pain like an ace and aces are high and my card trumps hers, except when we both play the same because we are a mirror, then the score is always zero. Life is not a card game, it’s a long haul, I make clumsy metaphors when I’m tired, I reach for cheap shots when I’m sad. My mom and me, we’re just the same.
But one of us saves pennies and plastic bags, one has a list in her Notes app of things she wants to buy and will in an instant to deflect from feeling anything else. It isn’t even like that. I just want the world at my fingertips, I’m selfish like that.
There are funny things we learn through living.
Mom: eat or be eaten.
Me: consume or be consumed.
I think that people assume because I write about my mother that there are no hiccups and we have a perfect relationship. That would be a lie. (Maybe I’m the only one who thinks people make assumptions about me; maybe because I know what we have is as perfect as it can get; I’m lucky just to be a daughter). My mom and I are close, certainly. And honest, mostly (I know she doesn’t tell me when I make her sad; I know I keep my cards close to my chest). I love her more than I love anyone in the world (save: my dad, my brother, and you), and she knows this but doesn’t. But, I write in the present tense. But, healing happens forwards and backwards and upwards and downwards and across generations — most of all — I’m being poked a million ways and those feelings are the only way I know I am alive. I omitted a metaphor in the line before this one. Can you guess what it was? Don’t start sentences with but. Start them with I was sad today and I don’t even know why. Oh, the things we learn from our mothers. It’s okay to not want to know sometimes.
This whole piece started because I wanted to share one thing: it was windy the other day. Telling someone about the weather is just a guise to tell someone how you feel. It was windy the other day, and a tree fell through mom’s mother’s roof, and she didn’t wake to hear it — even our bodies betray us, at the end of the day. Grandma still won’t buy an alarm system. There are bits of glass under mom’s skin from picking up the pieces by hand. Grandma still won’t buy an alarm system. Why pay just to feel safe?
Grandma: I made it through the war on a bag of rice.
Mom: eat or be eaten.
Me: consume or be consumed.
Oh, the things we learn from our mothers.
It’s okay to not want to know sometimes.
Question to ask your mom:
Is it hard to watch your kids grow up?
hi I’m in an airport being existential, 2022 ended just like that, time passes quickly, I’m still scared of everything, I’m leaving Seattle, I’m thinking about my mother waving goodbye at the terminal.
in 2023: gratitude, taking deep breaths to get through the hard parts, and, always, questions.
thanks for being here.
edit: I ended up sitting on this one for a bit, so that note above about airports, too, is only half true. I made a goal for this year to be willing to share writing even if I don’t find it perfect (which none ever truly is), and then, like clockwork, I let the vicious thought cycle take over. trying again now. learning to embrace the process, and see this space as an exercise in openness, rather than a pursuit of some unattainable perfection. <3