My Mother and Her Daughter

I came across this article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer (via Facebook). As I browsed through my news feed, I thought it was just another negligible article that my uncle posted. And then I spotted my last name! And the middle name that I share with my mother! And then her name! What the hell?

Of course I clicked it and this is what I read. I've been told tales of how astoundingly beautiful people think she is. I've met older men who, upon discovering that she is in fact my mother, would get that dreamy, nostalgic look on their faces as they look back on their youth and say, "Oh, I used to buy Jingle Magazine because of her." My cinematography teacher in my senior year knew her from when she'd model for him. I've heard stories of how boys would visit her, and how the guests at my grandmother's diner/inn would frustratedly ask her why my mom wouldn't date them (she had dignified reasons).

Read the full article here.

Being my mother's daughter, there was always some pressure to measure up, or at least bear some semblance of kinship. It doesn't help that I look nothing like her, or that I'm twice her waifly petite frame, or that my hair was crazy, and that I look every bit the Godzilla mutation that she isn't. But I guess at 24 years old, being around her for all those years, there's nothing else to do but to be okay with it. Much like the recent childhood-shattering scientific discoveries that the dinosaurs had feathers, I've grown to realize that I have feathers too, and I've grown to be quite comfortable with my skin.

But at 24 years old, I feel like I'm still nowhere near what she had down-pat when she was 24. I'm not meeting any new boys. I'm even going to go as far as saying that they might even be somewhat scared of me.  I haven't done the remarkable thing that will establish my existence with the one thing that I will be remembered for. But in my mother's case, her remarkable thing was something she was born with. The lucky duck.

Instead, I'm sitting behind this computer, typing this out. 

Nevertheless, I am a daughter that is proud of her mother in many ways! And what this is, is circuitously really just her lighting a fire under my ass and telling me to get off it and be great already!