Stamped at 3:38 a.m. on Oct. 5, my friend texted me to ask what it meant when she could only think about her mother as she was tired and alone in the back of an Uber.  

I talk to my mom every day. I think about her when something good happens, and I also think about her when bad things happen too. Tragically, I think about her the most when I raise my voice. To an untrained eye, it’s my dad that I resemble the most: same hands, same hair and same curve to our nose. The only physical traits I share with my mother are my eyes and my frown, one line that vertically cuts between my eyebrows. If we sat motionless next to each other, you wouldn’t be able to tell that I was her daughter.  

Yet, we move the same, we talk the same and we fight the same: loud, boisterous and unforgiving. My mother and I mirror each other like funhouse reflections: no matter how distorted or misshapen, it’s still you that you’re looking at through the glass. 

Deep in the trenches of my teenage years, I used to hate it, fiercely denying it as I bent myself in ways she wouldn’t recognize, though it hardly ever worked.  

She would say, “I made you, of course I know you better than anyone else.” I’d quip back, “how can you know me, when I never tell you anything?”  

However, you can’t wilt away from the ground that grew you, and as I bloomed into adulthood, I unconsciously started trying to take her with me wherever I went. 

When I moved away for college, I started stealing her coats, her scarves and her signature scent, storing them in my suitcase to keep me warm now that she couldn’t. Sometime between wearing her perfume and wearing her clothes, I started slipping into her skin as well, only this time, it seemed a more comfortable fit. 

I spend extra time in front of the mirror, trying to find her in there. I raise my voice confidently, knowing she would fight the same fight. I’m always thinking about her. I think about the way she loves me and how it’s the only right way to be loved. I think about how much I miss her, the pain akin to a phantom limb. I think about ways to thank her, for giving me life and for giving me this life specifically.  

We are made from the flesh of our mothers, and so we carry their weight—but though it may slump our shoulders, I fear what I might float away to if it ever got lifted.