Dear mother,

I always wonder what you imagined when they told you that you were having a baby girl. Did her laugh sound like the rustling and tinkling of wind chimes in a gentle breeze? Did she walk-no, glide- across city streets like a dream, each step as if she was drifting across clouds? Was she strong enough to fend off raging hurricanes with her bare hands? Was she a daughter you always wanted?

When I was younger, what I wanted to do the most was to make you proud. I would stand up straight, every vertebrae stacked on top of another perfectly in a line that could rival a ruler’s. I would bite my tongue so much that it bled, and the scars it left behind are still carved on the inside of my cheeks. I would keep syllables that wanted to desperately free themselves from my lips crammed into the bottom of my throat. I was graceful and sweet and everything you ever wanted. And a ghost of myself.

If I still followed the script, read out every line until those borrowed words felt like my own and re-enacted every scene change until it was muscle memory, I know life would be a lot easier. The bricks of our house would not quiver with slammed doors and screams. Our conversations would never jump from English to Chinese and back again, because the way we hurl words at each other is something only our mother tongues can keep up with.  The television would never but a necessary murmur in the background at dinner because we wouldn't need to worry about rockets firing from the roofs of our mouths and 7pm resulting in smashed dishes and bullet wounds in our hearts.

I have watched the corners of your mouth crumble; I have seen shards of your smile fall to the ground. I have held your heart in my hands and seen it rot, and as it did pieces of my own heart tumbled into the pit of my stomach. I know I am not the daughter you dreamt of having those many years ago, I am your nightmare.

But I am not just defined as your daughter- I am my own person. And while I may be able to play the part perfectly, I do not want to live as someone else’s sketch of who I “should” be.

So mom, please understand this. I am peeling off the identities of the girls that you wanted me to be, and trying to find my own. I am an archaeologist, trying to come across lost treasure, as I dig through dirt to come across forgotten bones, chipping away at rocks and ice to unearth who I want myself to become. I am learning that it’s okay if I don’t make everyone happy, that it’s okay to break away from who everyone wants me to be. I am learning to shake off the shackles, learning what it feels like to have my own space. I am learning what my own words taste like in my mouth, learning how my own laugh, loud and startling and mine, feels when it shakes my stomach. I am learning about my harsh edges, and learning that it’s okay to have them. I am learning that I am mine, and only mine.

It may take a while until I unravel the mystery of who I am. And maybe I’ll need to burn and break and hurt a little. But when I show the world my blood, my scars, my mistakes, and my fight, I hope that you will be proud of me.

Love,
Katie