WRITING Elsie Wang DESIGN / ILLUSTRATION Lila Hathaway
A Letter to My Mother Dear Mama, It has been almost two years since I’ve left home and embarked on my next level of life, one that’s not led by your advice and lectures. Two years since I realized that the world hasn’t gotten colder, I've just slipped beyond the reach of your warm embrace. At one point in my life, I know that I thought we between us seemed vast and unforgiving. But with years between that thought and now, as I sit isolated as a 19-year-old in college and further from home than I ever have been, I wonder why I ever thought that to begin with.
“Don’t lay in bed on your phone all day,” you would scold. “Do you want to lose your eyes?” I would respond, as always, “I know, I know,” and hold my phone further from myself for a few minutes before falling back into old habits. For all I understood, I had great eyesight. “What are you wearing?” you would question. “It’s bad to attract so much attention.” “I shouldn’t be punished just because other people like to stare,” I would snap, before reluctantly getting a jacket to cover up. We were living in America, why couldn’t my mom let go of her traditional beliefs?
I remember feeling like the shelter you’ve built I didn’t understand why I shouldn’t hold my phone too close to my face, why I shouldn’t draw too much attention to myself in public, or why my curfew was so strict.
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“It’s dangerous to stay out late,” you would say. “Why do you always want to go out?” I would fume, complaining, “All my friends get to hang out after school, why can’t I?” And for the rest of the week, I would apologize to my friends whenever they invited me to anything and blame my absences on my mom.
