Dear Mama,
I miss you. There’s no one to take care of me. I have friends, but I’m on my own. I complain about calling you every night, but I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t. It keeps me grounded with reality when everything else is flying by on a roller coaster.
I get up earlier than everyone else so that I can take the first shower before the bathroom gets too steamy, and as I stand there, alone in the stall with the rest of the dorms asleep, the loneliness washes over me and I feel very small and fragile. I hug my arms around my middle and my body feels very breakable.
People say I have a perfect family. We have dinner together every night, there are candles on the table and we sit and talk. People say I have a perfect family because my mother comes to visit every few weeks and she sends me packages of food. People say I have a perfect family because we live in the country and we have a garden and my mom cooks everything and I play with my brother and my father works from home…or we had.
Now I’m gone. I know you cried every day for weeks. You’ve lost your little girl. I’m on my own. I like to think I’m somewhat grown up, but I know it isn’t true. I giggle when something is funny and when people talk to me. I’m surprised that anyone would ever want to talk to me. I’m nervous about what others think of me and I hide at the back of the class because I’m the worst.
I’d do anything to make you happy. That’s what missing you does. I want you to kiss me goodnight. I want you to ask me how my day went. I want to tell you and ask you how yours was. I want to see you and feel you rubbing my back when I complain about my sore feet and say you’re sorry and then I want to say it’s ok. I want you to take care of me again. I’m too young to do this for myself. I need you, Mama. You are the only thing in my life that really matters. I used to pine for this—to be away from home—but now I see that home is far, far better than anything else in the world. I know that other people have difficult home lives and don’t get along with their parents, but it wasn’t like that with us.
I miss you, Mama, and I almost wish I hadn’t chosen this. I’m afraid of the future. I’m afraid of being on my own. I’m afraid I’ll never get a job or we’ll never have enough money for me to go to college and I won’t be smart enough to get a scholarship. I’m afraid, afraid, afraid, and I wish I were little again so I still had many years before I had to go out on my own.
Maybe one day I’ll show you this, but for now I don’t want you to worry about me, so I won’t let you know I’m in pieces.