the pearl speaks

I wish you'd actually be proud of me.

I don't know if you are. I feel like I'm just being laughed at, or humored. I feel like you're concerned about my future to the point of wondering why the hell I decided to follow my dreams, or what were my dreams back then, at least. I feel like you don't take me seriously enough as an adult, and maybe that's because when you and I talk, I don't speak from anywhere deeper than just past my epidermis; and the reason that is the way it is, is because I'm more afraid of your judgment than of most people's.

Why am I still only half of my self when I'm around you? I barely tell you anything. The bond between us is supposed to feel stronger than this.

I've made so many friends in the past four years, more in the last two than in my entire life. You won't know them all. My taste in music has changed so much, I doubt you know my favorite band. I use words in everyday language that you only let slide when I ask you to "pardon my French." I don't go to church anymore: my political and spiritual beliefs have shifted so much that the only way I can keep track of them is to listen to my intuition. I react to things differently--and the person that's been chipping away at the inside of this oyster shell (because I finally believe that I am beautiful, damn it) has finally broken through. This person smiles more, laughs and snorts like you would not believe, cries at things that would furrow your brow in confusion, and loves her friends and family with the force of three hurricanes. She's random, and she's crazy, and she's sassy and saucy, and she's still got this innocence about her that makes her see the world through the eyes of a child, and she wants to do things, and she doesn't want to sit around and pay her loans back even though she knows she's supposed to, and she's stronger than the girl you sent off to a university over two years ago, and she listens to her gut almost as much as she listens to her music, and finds beauty in the banal, and can dance pretty decently, and has gotten drunk and has had sex and still has insecurities about her relationships with men but you know what, she'll figure it out, and she wants to see parts of the world so badly it aches, and she wants to love someone who she knows loves her back, and for all the right reasons,

and yet she still feels like she has to prove something to you.

I can't talk to you about these things because I'm a different person. You raised me well enough that I can make my own choices based on what I see to be right and wrong, or in-between, and I am courteous and kind and I take initiative, damn it! But those and other facts set aside, I am not the person I think you wanted me to be. You raised me with certain ideals and beliefs, some of which I've kept, but most of which never stuck. And that's okay! Know why? Because I am my own person, and whether or not I'm scared to move to an unfamiliar place and try to make my own way in this world, however modest, doesn't matter, because at least I'm walking my own path! I enjoy life so much, and I'm not going to stand idly by and let the world whiz away on its axis without me, but I know that I don't have to think so far ahead that I lose my present time, because everything will be alright! And yes, I do not believe that God chooses a path for us, because I believe that makes me nothing more than a pawn on a giant green and blue chessboard, and you know what? I'm not okay with that. Life happens around me, and I take my own route through it!

So what do I have to do for you to see who I really am? For you to be proud of me, and not laugh at me?

I don't know if you know that you are one of the few people that grace this earth for whom I would gladly give it all up, if it meant that you could live. But you are.

I just wish I knew if you were actually, truly, good and proud of your daughter, Mom.