dear mom,
Everyone made growing up sound so regimented. I have to imagine you would've supported and pushed the same ideals: graduate - get a job - find a nice man - get married - buy a house - have a baby - raise a family - die. This is the path we follow; this is the path carved out for me. This path won't work for me though, mom. I do think in another timeline where you don't die, it would be fine. It would be an easy path to follow.
I want love all the same, but I don't necessarily know where I want (or need) it from. I learned over the course of the last couple years that maybe the love of my life is my community. I had a roommate ask me if I felt like I've had a great love of my life, and I really thought about it and said, "Probably not." And then she said "I think my friends are the love of my life," which felt so... right. It probably triggered something in my brain that I didn't recognize at the time, but now that I've basically extracted myself from my community, I think my old roommate was right.
My friends do feel like the loves of my life. I think moving has accentuated my attachment to them, but if I reflect back on the last several years in Oakland, I know it was building. There's a different sentimentality for adult friends. These are the people I met when I was starting to become my fully formed self. When I could begin to shed one layer of awkward guardedness because I would have to intentionally choose who to give my time to. These are the people who slowly helped me come to terms with parts of my identity I wished I could hide before. And showed me the value of being able to share the same struggles. These are the people who didn't even know they were providing a space for me to explore and let loose and be stupid and feel included. I wonder if you felt it too when you moved to Los Alamos. I wonder if you ended up finding that.
Today I talked to my therapist about my abandonment issues. It felt somewhat fitting because I just returned from a girl's trip, and as we all boarded our return flight - dreadfully tired, listless, zombies just trying to get to our seats - I started to feel so heavy. In the last couple hours of our flight, I just stared out the window while Godzilla x Kong played on the tiny screen in front of me, and I started crying because I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to land in Oakland just to have to leave it.
I remember when it was most clear I carried a lot of fear about people disappearing - a fast relationship that ended unexpectedly (maybe I'll detail in another letter) wrecked me. It took a few weeks to reason that it wasn't about the relationship necessarily; it was about the abandonment, and it felt cliche to lay on my tear stained pillow thinking "Do I have abandonment issues?"
After you died, it felt like everyone abandoned me. I know I've told you this before. I think you were our anchor in Los Alamos. It's clear now that all our family friends were actually your friends. I know you're only supposed to say nice things at someone's funeral, and I'll be honest that I don't actually remember any specific words from the eulogies at yours, but I have this feeling that you were a good friend. Did it come easy to you? I don't even know if you were naturally a sociable person. I don't really have memories of any of your friends pre-dating Los Alamos - except the one that dad brought home (maybe also a topic for another letter). If I could invite you over for dinner, I'd ask you about your childhood friends, your high school friends, your college and grad school friends, your adulthood friends.
I'd put on a pot of rice and start building a thick soup, as I told you about my "new" friends, I'd caramelize some rock sugar before dumping in potatoes, carrots, and onions while I explained who everyone is and what they do because I know you'd judge them by their professions. I'd tell you loudly over the sound of sizzling vegetables, about our fun food events and upcoming get togethers. And maybe you'd be interested or maybe you'd only pretend to understand. I thawed a stock of anchovy and doenjang for tonight's soup, and I'd explain to you that now I have several Korean friends, who have quietly influenced some of my food. I'd add in a bundle of enoki mushrooms to give some meatiness to this meatless meal, and we'd taste along as it simmered. Adding soy sauce and vinegar and sugar between sips and chatter about our upcoming week. You'd tell me about what you have planned because I bet you'd have several things planned, and I'd be glad to know you have people to spend time with and depend on.
Despite, or maybe because of, the way I feel about my found relationships, I often feel that sense of abandonment pulsing beneath the surface. What if the people I love don't love me back? Did you ever feel so pitifully insecure? Did you ever feel like your life path might not intersect everyone else's as neatly? I wish I could ask you these questions because I need you to tell me that it's okay to feel this way, that some people will choose me and some people won't and that I should sink everything into the ones that do choose me. I need you to tell me stories about you friends throughout your life, how you met them, how you grew with some, and how you grew apart from others. I especially want to hear about your adult friendships - the ones you found when you immigrated to this unknown country with an unknown future ahead of you. I would torch a handful of cheese over this hodgepodge stew, as you started to tell me about the a-yi's and shushu's I might remember from my own hazy childhood memories.
Tonight I miss my community, too,
Amelia
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