My Mother's Daughter

My Mother’s Daughter 

If a gun was pointed to my head and I am given two seconds to answer the popular question, “Who are you?” or sometimes framed as “What’s the most interesting thing about you?”, I would most probably blink twice, using up my two seconds in the process, and meet my fate. How tragic. But how do I even begin to answer that? Should I describe the person I think I am or the person I think I should be? Do I brag about my most significant accomplishment, which I am still working on, by the way? 

Or, do I blab about random shit like the fact that I never turn down a dare? Wait, is that even allowed? They say there is no correct answer but I believe how we choose to answer depends on the kind of audience before us because we are always trying to leave good first impressions. And in as much posing that riddle to a stranger does have its benefits, sometimes it can be an unfair litmus test to determine one’s level of self actualization.   

In my case, my answers vary from simply stating that I am dreamer, pleading the Fifth because whoever is asking is not stupid to believe I actually have that figured out, or giving a brief summary of my autobiography leaving out the messed up parts. I am in my twenties and like any other millennial, I am still adult-ing which is code for paying off student loans, getting eight hours of sleep and trying to make peace with the tiny fact that I have reached that weird age where friends are getting pregnant on purpose. That said, I guess people can cut me some slack. However, during some brief moments of self reflection, lying on my yoga mat instead of stretching, I know who I am. 

I am my mother’s daughter.

My mother is no Michelle Obama but she is just as tough, independent minded, ambitious and devoted to doing an amazing job of raising her children. Although I am not half the woman she is, I see some bits of her in me. We both love to read, speak broken Swahili, and smile a lot. What makes us more alike is our affinity to have control of our own lives. Perhaps a more accurate description of me, one that a friend managed to sum up in three words, is that I am a little rebel. My friend said that out of love and admiration, claiming that while I may not be crazy enough to take part in protests against the government, I don’t subscribe to most societal norms. 

 I spotted our personality differences way before I could feel the need to understand the woman I am becoming. I can be a slob and tend to use sarcasm in the most inopportune moments but my mother loves her house too much to let anything litter and is a good communicator. When she is not working, she prefers to visit the farm rather than curl up on the sofa and laugh at memes all day long which is her daughter’s version of passing time, which suffice to say, is a behavior that is sometimes considered unacceptable in an African household. But I am mostly unbothered by the traits I missed out on because it’s not just that the train has left the station but the beautiful realization that I am still my mother’s daughter. I don’t have to be the exact carbon copy of her because that, dear reader, would be weird.