Everything Everywhere All At Once is impossible to condense but. your mom loves you. your mom would do anything for you. she is incapable of expressing these things to you in a way that you can truly understand. she doesn’t understand you because she can’t. you can’t understand her either. you know that she would die for you but she can never give you a goddamn compliment or an apology or acknowledgement that maybe you were right all along. you know that she loves you but you don’t trust her not to hurt you if you share all the things you are and want to be and could be. she has always taught you that family is the most important thing, that when everything and everyone else fades, family is all you will have left. nothing feels safer than garlic and choi sum and tomatoes and eggs. you still haven’t told her your new name. the first coming out was awful, you never want to do that again. she drove for five hours to drop off groceries because she knows you have papers due and might not have time to shop. she is finally proud of you after all the stupid shit you did and said when you didn’t think you would live till 20. you know that she blames herself. you don’t think she could’ve done any better but fuck how is anyone is supposed to parent when she did most everything right and still you came oh so close to never seeing a brighter future. she drives you home and as you chat you realize that a few years ago you two could never have had a civil conversation that didn’t devolve into shouting. you realize that there are some things that you will never talk about with her because you don’t want to risk that again.
you know that she loves you. god, if only she would understand.
