You know that feeling when you look at your own kid and suddenly it’s like looking in a mirror but the mirror is warped, twisted? Like, you see glimmers of yourself, but then it’s all… *different*. My daughter, she's working in high-end real estate now. BIG money, BIG houses, you know? And she’s absolutely killing it. But I see her sometimes, hear her on the phone, and it’s like a different person. This… *accent*. Not how we talk. Never how we talked. All soft and airy, like she’s got a perpetual feather boa around her neck. And the things she talks about – polo, this charity gala for some obscure exotic bird, wine tastings where you’re supposed to smell 'earth' and 'regret.' Regret! Who talks like that? We talked about bills, about if the car was going to make it another winter. God. And I get it, I really do. You gotta fit in, right? You gotta blend. When I was younger, working that awful restaurant job, I learned to talk a certain way, too. To smile when I wanted to scream, to pretend I understood their fancy coffee orders when really, I just wanted to pour them a regular cup of joe. But this feels… bigger. Like she’s not just putting on a uniform, she’s putting on a whole new skin. She’s talking about 'investing in experiences' and ‘curating her life’ like it’s some kind of museum exhibit. And she sends me pictures of her office, these HUGE windows looking out over the city, and everyone is SO thin and SO tan and their clothes look like they cost more than my first car. Is that weird? Does everyone do this? Do you just shed your old self layer by layer until there's nothing left but this… aspirational version? Sometimes I wonder if she even remembers where she came from. The chipped Formica kitchen table, the hand-me-down clothes, the constant hum of worry about money. Does she ever look at those rich clients and see us? The real us? Or is it all just… gone now? Erased. And the thing that KILLS me is that I want her to succeed, I want her to have all of it. But then I feel this pang, this sharp, RANCID guilt, because part of me wants her to stay… ours. To keep that bit of grit, that bit of realness. And I’m just here, in my house, the same four walls, with the same stains on the carpet, trying to remember who *I* was before I became just 'Mom,' before I just… stopped having a self outside of this. It’s isolating. Like we’re both becoming strangers to ourselves, just in completely opposite directions. And I don’t know which is worse.