As she grows older, Carmen Cristo (left) finds herself becoming more like her mother, Regina Wallace (right).
I felt strangely sad the day my parents got rid of the Chrysler Spirit with chipped baby-blue paint that my mom had driven for years. I remember a tear rolling down my face the day, a few years later, that my mother asked for perfume for Christmas that was not Jessica McClintock. When I was growing up, I felt like a different person each day, but my mom was an anchor—stable and consistent. I like her that way.
She drinks her coffee with French vanilla creamer every morning before everyone else is awake.
When my mom laughs, she cries. And sometimes, she cries just because.
She prefers her hair short and big, but she changes the style every few months. She never likes it.
On a sunny Saturday, she cleans with music on and all the doors and windows open.
She spends more money driving to her favorite thrift store each week than she does at the actual thrift store.
She is a stealthy superhero for starving animals in our community, sneaking over when their owners aren't home to feed them.
She is a creator—constantly making things with her hands, as if she isn't living if she doesn't have something tangible to show for it.
No matter what it is, she does it herself. She is completely capable of standing on her own two feet. However, she hates being alone. She says that God gave her my younger sister so that she wouldn't be lonely when my older sister and I left home.
She dances, snapping as she rocks side to side. And it never changes, no matter the genre or tempo.
My mother still tells me she loves me almost every night, now via text.
Last year, on Mother's Day, I tweeted: "I feel like I have been 20 different people in my 20 years of life, and my mother has loved every one."
In the year since that tweet, I have gotten married in my mother's dress, rescued another pet and taken countless selfies only to see her staring back at me. My first home is decorated in thrift-store finds. I have attempted (and failed) to grow my short hair out. I started mixing creamer into my black coffee. I laughed until I cried. And sometimes I just cried, because being an adult is hard.
Plot twist: I have always been one person, slowly transforming into my mother while developing my own opinions and ideas along the way.
Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful mother. Thank you for teaching me to be my own person, even if I turned out just like you anyways. I love you more than you know.
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