Peaches: The Hard Core of Mother-Daughter Relationships
By Jane Lee
Peaches have always been my favorite fruit. Whenever that question came up, which was surprisingly a lot, peaches were my automated response. The funny thing is, I actually can’t recall too many times where I thoroughly enjoyed a peach from beginning to end. They were sometimes too hard, or too bland, or not sweet enough, and I’ve probably eaten more bad ones than good ones.
I don’t know what made me think that answers couldn’t change. It felt like the minute I proposed an answer, I had to stick with it no matter what. So the minute I let it be known to others that my family and I were absolutely perfect, there was no turning back.
There were no mistakes with my mom. If ballet class was at 3:00, you will see us there by 2:45. My sandwiches were never cut in anything but perfect little cubes, and you never would catch me biting my nails or tapping my foot. With my mom there was structure, and God forbid we ever step outside of that structure. That being said, I still adored my mom more than anything.
I remember being in middle school, when my friends started complaining about their parents. “My mom is so annoying.” “I wish my mom would get off my ass.” “I don’t really talk to my mom like that.” I would hear those with such shock, as if they just signed an emancipation contract, and promised myself that I could never be upset with my mom like that. I couldn’t imagine complaining about my family, and I think that aside from just feeling guilty, I was afraid that whatever I said would only make the reality of my family even more real. As we grow up, not only do people change, but so do dynamics, and I refused to accept that. I constantly told myself that any change in our relationships were only because of certain circumstances, and not because families could, in fact, diverge. But the show wasn’t over. In a community of estranged siblings and divorced parents, I couldn’t give up on the perfect family portrait that I painted for everyone to envy. “Of course, my parents never fought, my brother and I still joke and hang out on the daily, and I absolutely loved the fact that my mom knew everything about me.”
I told her absolutely everything. My mom has been a clean freak for as long as I could remember, and I recall immediately reporting to her when my silverware accidentally touched the naked table surface. If someone at school drank from my water bottle that day, I had to let her know as soon as I got home. I thought that I would feel better if I came clean, quite literally, to her, but eventually, it became tiring. Even though it was all up to me, and she never forced anything out of me, it felt like it was my duty to be completely utterly transparent to my mom because we were best friends, remember? But what’s so wrong if I wasn’t?
As I got older, I began to feel suffocated. For five years of my teenhood, it was just my mom and I, but it was also the time I was trying most to find who I was outside of my parents’ daughter. I wanted to do that by making mistakes and navigating this thing called life on my own, but I had a teammate. With half of our family being on different sides of the Earth, how could I make it any more lonely for her? At the end of the day, it was just going to be her and me. So endearing, right?
Though nobody forced me, it was an unspoken rule that I had to take care of my mom. We both only had each other, and I knew that, but I also wanted to not know that. I wanted to know what it would be like to long for my mother’s presence. As much as I was still holding onto the sisterhood-like relationship between my mom and I for dear life, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t help but wish that my mom and I weren’t so close.
Was this what my life was going to be forever? Unable to live a separate life from my mom who helps me through every obstacle and get all my decisions checked by her so that I never make a mistake? But I couldn’t complain because this is what I wanted, right? We were best friends, and I spent my whole life making others jealous for the relationship I had with her that they didn’t. Was this my ultimate fate I was expected to accept? We’d be together forever, and I couldn’t be opposed to it, otherwise I am an ungrateful daughter.
This past summer, the whole scene changed. I now sit here on my college campus in Austin, Texas, while my mom sleeps in my parents’ home in Seoul, South Korea. Ultimately, the girl who grew up the closest to her mother, ended up physically being the farthest away from her.
My mom may not have been the most publicly affectionate person, but I never minded it. Rather than covering my brother and I’s faces with kisses in the morning, she woke us up with the smell of a full fledged breakfast. My mom wanted to give us the best, and not just what we wanted. Parental instinct, I suppose.
This past summer, I was in the kitchen with my mom. She was cutting up peaches.
“I like soft peaches better.” I said, while digging my teeth into the hard peach my mom gave me.
“Hard peaches are at their peak right now. They’re much more expensive and better quality.” She insisted, cutting up even more and filling my plate.
A month and 7,000 miles later, I am on the phone with her, who had just woken up while the Texan sun was about to set.
“Someone sent us a package of peaches the other day. They were soft ones. All you ever wanted were soft peaches and yet I only ever gave you hard ones.” She sniffled.
It’s never too late to love, whether it be your go-to display of affection or in a way that’s a little too new for you. It’s also never too late to recognize that relationships do change, but your feelings don’t have to. No, my family isn’t as perfect as I made them out to be, but my answer hasn’t changed. Peaches are still my favorite fruit.
