it’s mother’s day. i’m alone in a café, somewhere between flashcards and caffeine, studying for one of the hardest finals of my life. the place is full but feels hollow. i hear clinking mugs, low music, and conversations that blur into each other… but all i can really hear is my own heart, pounding in my chest like it’s trying to remind me of something i’m trying not to feel.
i call her this morning. “happy mother’s day, madre. thank you for everything.” i meant it. i always mean it. she created me, raised me, poured every ounce of herself into me and my siblings. she didn’t get the luxury of becoming her own person slowly she had to grow up fast and give fast. and she gave everything. that kind of sacrifice lives in the air between us, unspoken but understood. she’s my mom. she’s my best friend. and i think…i hope…i’m hers too.
we talk like best friends. we tease each other. we call about random life updates. i can hear the love in her voice when she tells me she’s proud of me especially when she tells me she prays and hopes im okay every single time, and i hold on to those words like a lifeline. but beneath it all, there’s this ache…this space i can’t fill with words, not even the pretty ones i use to cover up the truth. there’s a version of me she doesn’t know. a version she might not want to know. and it breaks me.
i’ve never told her.
she knows me better than anyone. better than i know myself, sometimes. but not in this way. not in this truth. that silence is the loudest thing in my life.
i take a break from studying and scroll through tiktok. mother’s day content is everywhere. surprise visits, old photo montages, mothers and daughters slow dancing in wedding dresses. and for a moment, i smile, because i get it. i have that kind of love with her. or at least i did. but the more i scroll, the harder it gets to breathe.
slipping through my fingers plays… and there she is again, this mother dancing at her daughter’s wedding, tears in her eyes, her hands trembling as she lets go. i watch, and my throat tightens like a fist. my nose starts running, eyes watering, and i can’t stop it. i try to blink the tears away, but they come anyway. my chest caves in. my face breaks. and suddenly i’m crying in the middle of a café.
i rush out.
why am i crying? i have a good relationship with my mom. we’re close. we love each other. right?
but then it hits me…i might never have that moment.
not because i don’t want it. god, i want it more than anything. but because there’s a wall between us built out of all the things we don’t say. and when i picture telling her, really telling her, i don’t see hugs and tears and soft music. i see heartbreak. i see fear. i see the way her voice changes when she talks about “those people,” and i realize…she doesn’t know that i’m one of them.
she’s told me before. they both have. what they think. how they’d react. and i know that the moment i speak my truth, i might lose her. i might lose the only person who has been there through everything. from the moment i existed to now.
she’s seen me as a baby, as a boy full of questions, as a teenager breaking and rebuilding under the weight of expectations. she’s the reason i survived some of the darkest parts of my life. she was there when i stopped eating. when i said i was “fine.” when i wasn’t.
i wrote about that once. the ache of wanting to be seen for all that i am, not just the version i’ve polished for survival. i’ve written about how i keep returning to the little boy i once was, the one who wanted to be loved without condition, without shame. and on days like today, i feel like that boy again. small. afraid. desperate for softness.
it’s terrifying…how quickly love can turn into loss when you put your whole self on the line.
i imagine telling her. i rehearse it in my head. i imagine her face, the silence that would follow, the way i might have to hold myself together while she falls apart. i imagine the sound of her slipping through my fingers. not because i want to let go, but because the truth might push her away.
and i don’t know how to survive that.
everything else in my life, i’ve fought through. school. work. loneliness. identity. all of it. but this? this is different. this is the hardest thing i’ve ever carried. and there’s no flashcard for this moment. no lecture, no textbook, no office hours.
just me. and her. and the weight of a thousand things we’ve never said.
i love her. i love her more than words can say. but today, that love feels like it’s wrapped in barbed wire.
if she ever reads this—maybe one day—i hope she knows i never wanted to keep this from her. i just didn’t want to lose her.
but maybe the real heartbreak is knowing i already feel like i have.
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