Just Something I Wrote

Eighteen
I sat at my vanity, surrounded by trinkets, music boxes and various pink, sparkly things that I had collected throughout my childhood. And now I looked in the mirror to see my reflection, not one of a little girl, but one of a full fledged adult. Adult. What a scary word, I thought to myself.
“Today, I am eighteen,” I said aloud to nobody in particular. I just wanted to test the words out and see how it felt. I let the sentence roll over in my mouth and my mind as I looked at myself in the mirror, wondering what made today so different than yesterday. What does it mean to be an adult? I still go to high school. I still live in my parent’s house. I still watch the Disney Channel, for God’s sake! Yet today, in the eyes of America, I am an adult fully able to buy cigarettes, pornography, and can be charged as an adult for any crime. I am not financially independent by any means, my Dad drives me to school every morning and yet, I can be legally tried as an adult.
I picked up a porcelain unicorn figurine on my vanity that my Mom bought for me when she was away in China on a business trip. She was always gone a lot. I knew she didn’t really have much of a choice, but I wish I saw her more often than I saw Jane. Jane has been with us since I was two or three and I guess that qualifies her as a family member by now. I hate how she comes into my room when I’m at school and straightens everything up. It almost looks too perfect, like nobody lives here. The white, smooth porcelain unicorn feels cool and hard in my hand but its smiling face somehow seems to soften the figurine. It wasn’t that long ago when I used to fall asleep with my old, stuffed unicorn. I called her “Moonbeam.” For some reason I have always associated unicorns with night time. When Mom brought me the stuffed unicorn back from her trip to Japan, Jane had already tucked me into bed. I was tired, but couldn’t sleep because I knew Mom was coming home that night. She always brought me something back from every trip. She liked to surprise me, but I always kind of expected it. Right before I was about to fall asleep, I saw my bedroom door slowly crack open and I knew that if she thought I was sleeping, she wouldn’t come in…it was a school night.
I said, “Hi Mom!” just loudly enough so she would know I was awake. She ran into my room and crawled into bed with me.
“Hi sweetheart, did you miss me?” she said as she gave me a big, long hug. She pulled the unicorn out of a plastic bag, it looked so beautiful and white in the darkness of my room. Its horn was silver and sparkly, and felt rough compared to rest of the plush body. “I brought her all the way home from Japan so you could take care of her,” She said, “What are you going to call her?” I looked at the unicorn who seemed to just shine in the moonlight coming in through my window. I knew right away what her name would be,
“Moonshine!” I said proudly. Mom laughed at me and I didn’t know why.
She said, “Why don’t we call her Moonbeam, honey?”
“Okay,” I said. I always knew my Mom was right. From there on out, I called my unicorn Moonbeam and slept with it every night. It reminded me of her. But now the days of playgrounds, barbies, and dress up were over. I guess they were over a long time ago. My whole life adults have always seemed to comment on how ‘grown up’ I was, or how I was ‘so mature for my age.’ At the time I was always weirded out after receiving those comments, but in retrospect it makes sense. I grew up an only child, always alone, Jane was there, but she was a little to old to make a good play mate. My Dad was there, at times, and never the crucial ones. He worked a lot too, and always had those unavoidable international conference calls scheduled at the exact same time as my soccer games, ballet recitals, and student award assemblies. But at least he was in the same country. That’s more than my Mom could say. I guess you could say that I am one of those kids who raised themselves.
I looked in the mirror one last time, hating what I saw. My eyes were swollen from a lack of sleep the night before and I hated this dress that I was forced to buy at the last minute. It didn’t look like anything that belonged in my closet. It’s too grown up, too sophisticated, too black. She would have hated this dress too, it feels almost inappropriate to be wearing this today. While looking at the reflection of myself, my eye is drawn to a glimmer of white, boldly standing out from my consumingly black outfit. I realize I am still holding onto the white, porcelain unicorn.
I put it back down on the table, and couldn’t help but feel a little sad. I thought I might cry. I hadn’t cried yet. To me, my mother was always like a unicorn, some kind of mythical creature that only existed in photographs and family fairy tales. I knew she was my Mother, but it never really felt that way. The business trips, and long vacations really took their toll. So when I received the phone call from Jane that my Mother had been killed in a car accident in New York, I didn’t know what to do. When most teenagers hear the news of a parents death, they cry and can’t fathom a life without their mom or dad. But I was already living a life without my parents.
Getting ready for the funeral was the most difficult part of this whole experience. Putting on this dress, and knowing that my family and friends will be watching, waiting for some kind of reaction, all the while making confused comments about how unfortunate it is that the funeral happened to fall on my birthday. My eighteenth birthday. “What a smooth transition into adulthood,” I thought to myself. “A true test of poise, composure and maturity….holding yourself together at your own mother’s funeral.”