Hey Mom,

I know you’re not around to hear this, but I guess I’ve just been missing you lately. I know, what a change.

Change.

I’ve changed so much over the course of my life, I don’t really know who I am anymore. I feel like I’m so much more different today than when I was twelve, let alone yesterday. I’m not that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed daughter of yours that you used to know and love. I’ve become hardened by the world around me, and I don’t know if I can take it.

The only thing that has stayed constant in my life is the necklace that you gave to me when I was younger. You know how I practically never took the stupid things off? Yeah. Nothing’s changed about that.

The memory of when I got it will never fade. Actually, it’s probably the most vivid memory that I have, and I doubt that will ever change. I remember our house, and how the frost clung to the windows, afraid to let go for fear of melting. How perfectly toasty-warm everything felt, and just how perfect that day was in general. As I feverishly searched for my gifts, the warm, loving smile only a mother could have spread across your face, while the steam from your coffee gently caressed both of our noses.

Now, 30 years later, I’m sitting here in my local park, writing this message on a grass-green balloon (yes, I still remember your favorite color), constantly wondering when it’ll all fall apart; when the pieces of everything in the world will get so small but so significant, where nothing can be fixed without that one piece. Almost like a broken mirror.

Sometimes, I’m glad you’re not here. Not in the sense that I’m glad you’re gone, but in the sense that you don’t have to worry anymore. You don’t have to witness these terrible things that go on in the world everyday, that people act as if it’s normal. Begging, overpopulation, deadly diseases running rampant even throughout the richest and most well-developed countries. On a good day, you don’t even have to wear your gas mask around outside. Most of the time they’re mandatory. Yeah, pollution’s gotten that bad.

But, I’m getting off track.

I guess my point is that nothing is perfect. It’ll never be. But, even though you’re not here, I still have (no pun intended. I know how you like puns), my rock; my little piece of the world. It doesn’t seem like much to the common person’s eye – after all, it is only a dingy, worn-down piece of who-knows-what kind of metal, that was put into the standard mold of a treble clef by a machine. A machine that has no feelings. Though it doesn’t weigh much physically, I’ll forever know that I’ll have the weight of the world – no, my world- hanging from my neck on an equally dingy metal chain.

That’s something that’ll never change.

But, I’ve probably rambled on for long enough. Go and enjoy whatever you’re doing up by those big, pearly gates, and I’ll catch you when it’s my turn. Okay? Okay.

Love,
Sarah