When I was four, I used to imitate my mom on business calls on my pretend phone in my pretend office. I'd rush around frantically talking to imaginary people whose names were remarkably similar to the real life people that my mom worked with. I too, was a business woman. When I was seven I'd sit in the bathroom when my mom wasn't home and play with her makeup. I never dared put it on my own face though because that would be waking the beast. But I'd smush around the lipstick on my fingers reverently, as if the magic that made her who she was was hidden deep somewhere within that tube of Bobbi Brown. When I was nine, I'd watch my mom get ready (although she didn't know it) and wish that my hair wasn't quite so frizzy and that my glasses could become invisible so that I could be as pretty as her. And at twelve, I'd always bury my face in her clothing so I could inhale that distinctly unique blend of facewash, perfume, and mom. I'd smell it wafting down the hallway as she went to leave the house, and I'd stop and sniff for a moment, and wonder if that was ever something that my daughter would do. Don't get me wrong, if you go through my diaries from my childhood, most of them are a comical soap opera about how my mom wouldn't let me do something or the other. But it didn't change the fact that at every party, every family gathering, every public outing, I would find myself looking over at my mother after I said or did anything, looking for signs of approval or disapproval in her demure face. When I was fifteen, I begrudgingly thanked my mom in my head as I found myself saying the same gems of wisdom to my friends that she had given to me. I found myself repeating aphorisms about boys, and life, and self worth, and dreams that my own mother had passed on to me. And at seventeen, my heart broke when I realized I could never be who she was. I was headstrong, passionate, stubborn, a procrastinator, a dreamer, and for lack of better adjectives, an artsy fartsy hippie. And believe me when I say those are nice qualities for a character in a book but not really a real human being. Me to my mother's detail oriented, realistic, organized, steadily driven, consistent, mathematical and scientific mind, was a combination like fire and ice. My poor father.
As a teen, in my mind, my mother was the cause for global warming, WWI as well as WWII, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the extinction of the dodo bird, the debt ceiling, and the fall of the US Postal Service. Oh and last but certainly not least, the ruining of my life. That's because my mom wasn't exactly a Pintrest mom that made me fresh baked cookies or told me to have a good day at school and if she ever used the word "sweetie" it usually was drenched in sarcasm and meant that I was in deep, deep trouble and she was trying not to kill me. I learned to interpret her silence as approval and...well there was NO interpretation needed when there was disapproval. She couldn't tolerate small talk (and if you have a teenage daughter you do a lot of that...you have to listen to who likes who and why Jennifer told Lauren that she was dramatic and like LAUREN isn't dramatic at ALL...you get the point). If I wasn't going to talk about saving the world or getting married, my mom really didn't want to hear it.
But as my life went on and I met girls who could only talk about other girls and hot guys and makeup, deep down I became sort of glad that I didn't have a Pintrest mom. I had a mom that was a fighter, a warrior, a game changer. I had expectations on me far greater than just graduating and having a job and a family. My mom expected me to do something truly great for someone greater than myself because of all I had been given. And while most days I could only focus on the lack of fresh baked cookies and smiles, and how hard she was on me, I was so thankful deep down that I had a challenge so seemingly insurmountable to face. What's life if it's easy?
It's August now. I'm packing up my whole life into boxes and staring at a terrifyingly blank new slate. It's the beginning of the rest of my life. And as I look around my room, I start to get choked up realizing all the unspoken acts of love my mother had done for me. The room that she had decorated for me, the all white fairy furniture we'd picked out when I was in first grade, the poem she'd given me when my brother Zayn was born that talked about doing good even even in the face of disaster, the starfish she'd brought back for me from Mexico one summer, the calligraphy scrolls with my name on it that she'd brought back from China, and the purses she'd brought back for me from Dubai, the stack of classic novels she'd bought for me at seven and insisted I read. It hits me then that there's never been a moment where I haven't been on my mother's mind. I'm seared within every nucleus of every cell that makes up her body. In every wrinkle, every smile, every tear, every drop of sweat. I'm there. And in that moment, I realize that often times the strongest love is the one that is unspoken. I'd just been too immature before to understand that. My mom may not have always voiced her support for me in the typical cheerleader way, but looking back, she'd always been in my corner, even if it seemed like she had been against me. That's because sometimes the best thing for your child, and the nice thing aren't always the same.
A mother daughter relationship is probably one of the most complex things on the face of the planet. It's frustrating on both ends, it's painful, and you come out of it with about 20 pounds you can't get rid of and stretch marks that don't seem to fade and a sassy little monster that resides in your home. But I promise you, that there will be a moment where things click into place. Where you are no longer seen as the enemy, but as the demanding ally instead. Where we can see the good in what you did and not merely our petty frustrations. It's a process, it takes time. But I promise it'll happen. Whether it be at 15, 17, 25, or 50, it will happen. But there is a moment in everyone's life where you learn to zoom out of the tree you were looking at, and choose to see the forest instead.
So to my Benito Mussolini, to my Stalin, to my jail master, my warden, to my teacher in sarcasm, in strength, in wit, and most importantly, resilience, thank you. You were my Mussolini, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I'm pretty sure I would be in jail and with some drug problem if I had a Martha Stewart as a mom because I wasn't always exactly Red Riding Hood myself. I love you.
