Story by Jane Lee // she/her // @j6nelee

Graphic by Grace Sajjarotjana // she/her // @grace.sajjarotjana

Peaches have always been my favorite fruit. Whenever that question came up, which was surprisingly often, I would automatically respond with “peaches.” The funny thing is, I actually can’t recall many times when 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 why I thought my  answer couldn’t change, but it felt like the minute I proposed an answer, I had to stick with it no matter what. 

So as soon as 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 p.m., you would see us there by 2:45 p.m. My sandwiches were never cut in anything but perfect little cubes, and you  would never catch me biting my nails or tapping my foot. 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, not just what we wanted. Parental instinct, I suppose.

 With my mom there was structure, and God forbid we ever step outside of that structure. I didn’t know life any other way, nor did I bother trying to know. It felt like if I were to express any kind of curiosity, I was violating my role as a good daughter.

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” and so on.  My ears met these words with such shock, as if they just signed an emancipation contract: I  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 become my family’s reality. 

As we grow up, not only do people change, but so do relationship dynamics. I refused to accept that. I told myself that any change in our relationships was circumstantial, and not because families could gradually diverge. In a community of estranged siblings and divorced parents, I couldn’t give up on the perfect family portrait that I had painted for everyone to envy. “Of course, my parents never fought, my brother and I still joked and hung 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 can  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. Though she never forced anything out of me, it felt like it was my duty to be utterly transparent with my mom because we were supposed to be best friends. But what was so wrong if I wasn’t?

As I got older, I began to feel suffocated. For five years of my adolescence , it had been just me and my mom.  But it was also during this time that I was trying to figure out  who I was outside of being my parents’ daughter. I wanted to do that by making mistakes and navigating this thing called life on my own, but I had my mom to consider. She was someone who always had my back, and so I had theirs, no matter what. With half of our family being on different sides of the Earth, how could I make things 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 I had with her, for the first time ever, 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 life separate from my mom, who helps me through every obstacle and checks all my decisions so that I never make a mistake? I couldn’t complain because this is what I wanted, right? We were best friends, and I’d spent my whole life making others jealous of the relationship I had with her. 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.

Now, everything has changed. I now live on my own 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.

This past summer, I was in the kitchen with my mom. She was cutting up peaches.

“I like soft peaches better,” I said, digging my teeth into the hard fruit my mom had given 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 later and 7,000 miles away, I am on the phone with her, just as she wakes up while the Texan sun is 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,” her nose sounds stuffy and her tone regretful.

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. It’s also okay to not have a definite explanation to back up all of your thoughts and opinions. Maybe it’s too complicated to put into a few words, and the only logic you can come up with is “just because.” Your love is more than enough of a reason. 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.