to my mom

 

I remember being five years old and couldn't wait to grow up. I would often tell my mom I couldn't wait to move out be "on my own". I thought being an adult meant more fun than your mom telling you to eat your vegetables and to brush your teeth. 

I remember being fourteen, getting ready for my first formal dance. I was so particular I would do my own makeup and didn't want my mom taking pictures of me. I remember stealing my mom's stick concealer, rubbing it all over my face and thinking it looked good. 

I remember being eighteen, going off to college, but still living at home. I remember feeling so "lame" that my mom would not want me out at all hours of the night. I desperately wanted to live on campus.

I remember being twenty-four. I graduated college and got my first big girl job. I packed all I had known as mine in cardboard boxes to move to the "big city" as five-year-old Lily wished many years ago. 

I am twenty-six, in the living room of my empty apartment. I pick up the phone to call my mom, but sometimes I wish I had held on to the days she was just in the other room. You can't give a hug over the phone. I got my mom's words from a card tattooed on my arm she had given me many years ago. 

I only hope to be the only kind of mother my mom is. I hope when I have my own daughter, and she asks about my arm tattooed; I will get to tell her that I'm a strong woman because of my mom and how I will always have a piece of her with me. 




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