Hold on, Let me Call my Mom
October 18, 2024
Writer: MaKenna Atkins
Editor: Sonia Walke
Adolescence is when nothing is supposed to be permanent- music tastes develop, the internet produces new trends weekly, and friend groups expand and shrivel. However, during my adolescence, one thing always remained unchanged. The innate desire to make my mother proud was one characteristic that stayed no matter how many times I tried to outrun it. Before me, my mother raised two beautifully brilliant daughters; she had raised daughters of whom she could be proud of. I was not about to be any different. I was determined to be better.
To do that though, I thought I had to show her that I was capable of handling the brunt of what life had to offer all by myself. I was in such a rush to grow up, I never once stopped to consider that I was the last “everything” that my mother would get to experience with her children. I was the last one to get driven to sleepovers, I was the last one she ever attended honors nights for, and I was the last one that she dropped off for the first year of college. As my mother said goodbye to her last college freshman, she was also saying goodbye to her last baby. But I had yet to realize that.
College, for me, marked the beginning of the rest of my life. Everything that I had worked so hard for was becoming a reality. I could finally make my mother proud.
Although, it turned out that my newfound independence wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. After the first few months of college, independence had a new meaning to me: it meant struggling to adjust to tough assignments and failing exams for the first time, it meant hating your roommate but being too scared to stray too far from her due to the of the fear of not finding any other friends, it meant breaking up with your boyfriend and having to pretend that your world wasn’t shattering into a million jagged pieces. It didn’t matter that my life was falling apart, I refused to call my mother unless I had something good to tell her. During that first semester, those calls were few and far between. I couldn’t bear the thought of her thinking I had failed at becoming one of her beautifully brilliant daughters of whom she could be proud of.
During one of my worst weeks, I received a text from my father. The message was only a sentence long, but it spoke volumes. It read, “You should call your mother, she misses her baby.”
That text marked the beginning of a much-needed realization.
I was not proud of the person, the daughter, I had become. My mother needed me just as much as I needed her but I had been too proud to realize that.
What was I trying so hard to run away from? A mother who had and would sacrifice everything for my happiness? A mother who pushed me to become the very best version of myself? A mother who picked me up, dusted me off, and encouraged me to try again? During my journey to become a daughter that she could be proud of, I became a person who my mother barely knew.
Finally, after months of silence, I picked up the phone and called my mother. Through many long phone calls, I unloaded all of the good, the bad, and the ugly. We laughed, we cried, but most importantly, we rebuilt the relationship that both of us had longed for.
From these calls, I learned that it’s okay to call my mother on every occasion. It’s okay to call her about awkward encounters that I’ve had, it’s okay to send her pictures of chicken to make sure it’s fully cooked, and it’s okay to just call to check in and say, “I love and miss you.” Growing up doesn’t mean that you have to outgrow your mother, it just means you get to find new ways to grow together.
