Mamma,
The only way I know to reflect on my life with you is to picture what I'd tell my daughter some day.
I'd tell her: if you're sad when others are happy, you'll always be sad. If you're happy when others are happy, you'll always be happy. That is the first thing I remember you teaching me about jealousy -- not necessarily that it's bad or shameful, but that it rots from the inside out. That there is no way to escape sadness if you choose to chase happiness away from others. There's a story in Hindu mythology of Karna slicing armor from underneath his skin, handing it over while it's still dripping with his blood, and that is what you taught us love was. Everything I have belongs to you. We are tall people, not in inches but in stature.
I'd want her to write every day of her life, and casually quote the holy texts. For years, it was my favorite part of myself -- not that I could collect trophies on my bookshelves or medals around my neck, but that I could talk about anything. Everything. The people who love me most love this about me; that I know what ikigai means and catch subtle references to pop culture and esteemed literature. That I was never careless enough to assume that abortion legislation couldn't hurt me. Jason said he'd describe me as genuine, Victoria wise. I'm reminded of Lorde: I am my mother's child, I'll love you till my breathing stops. My empathy is a regurgitation of the best parts of yours.
My daughter should know to save the best parts of herself for the people she would trust with her children, and to only marry the person she looks at and finds imaginary wrinkles on. I haven't always been the best at this -- in the second grade, when Eve asked to take all our homegrown plants and I, overjoyed to have a real friend, found the largest possible cardboard box from our basement and began filling it up, did you worry that you had failed to teach me boundaries? When Zoe Silver bullied me into a friendship and you told me, "Deepti, don't ever doubt my instincts," did you fear what I'd do without your radar to guard me? Because for years, no decision felt right until you told me it was. Taylor Swift writes, I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you looking at me, and at twenty, with my haphazard instincts and underdeveloped spine, I wonder if I've made you proud yet.
I'm sure you worry that I'm straying too far away from you. I spend too many nights without calling you, swear too casually, and reference sex a little too much for our pristine comfort. In truth, as I age, I find myself less blindly convinced by everything you say; there are times when I stare at you and wonder how I came from your house, when our roads diverged the way they must have to be so far apart now. Why are you so rigid? Why have you never taken anything lightly in your entire life? Why do you not trust me enough to know we're on the same team? But on the worst of those days, I'm never scared; there's still so little I wouldn't tell you. Granting me permission to fight, to stray, to debate-- it has become the fabric of who I am. I remember Fredrik Backman: sons are supposed to be better than their fathers. Daughters, too. I'm supposed to be a little further from you than we're comfortable with, I think. We should just be grateful I still tell you about the office drama I overhear and the eight-day vacations I plan on taking.
In the end, I think there will never be another relationship that holds a candle to the one I have with you. I wrote in a blogpost once: When people tell me their "don't tell anyone, but..." secrets, I take them to the grave. And by that I mean my mother will find out tonight. This will always be true. It will always be true that the people I love know you the way I do -- that is, hear stories of your adages and your flaws, always half-amused and half-exasperated. I can't quite stop talking to strangers about you. I can't stop being my mother's daughter. It will be the epitaph I never escape, never outrun, never undo.
What I'm trying to say is, my life is one big celebration of you.
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