my mother's mirror

the following piece is one of the three short essays from my newest poetry collection, ‘please look into the mirror.’ it was one of the hardest to write but it was also really healing. hope it hits you where it needs to.

last year, i saw my mom for the first time in three years.

time is a funny thing. it can do almost anything–grow, warp, distort, watch things pass by. but the only thing time can't do is preserve.

i don't think i grew any taller but my mom plus three years is a little smaller. a little sadder. she looked a little more fragile than what i remembered. than the bully that my inner child knew. than the unfaceable monster of my early adulthood. my perception changed. because those three years made me feel stronger. more resilient. less susceptible to crack at any moment.

but when i saw her sadness, i couldn't help but feel it in me. maybe this was the first time in my life where my mother's feelings weren't a projection of something else. her sadness was directly caused by the distance between us. in a way it was one of the first experiences we shared equally since my birth.

and in that moment, after those three years, i watched my mother see her reflection in me. and i watched her see me not as something that reflected all the dark parts of her. the things she wanted to forget. but i watched her see me as grief that could let go. as love, that for three whole years, had nowhere to go.

i had to be broken glass before i could stand in the mirror. really look at myself, instead of just holding up a mirror for her. instead of just being her reflection.

now, i can look right back at her. we stand facing each other. holding time in one hand and hope in the other. i don’t need to be her reflection anymore. for us, time was the only thing that could separate our identities. it gave me my own mirror. and now we both get the chance to be whole.

you can learn more about ‘please look into the mirror’ here.