As an adult, there are two different kinds of calls I make to my mother. The first is the ‘Mom, what natural remedies can work for my menstrual cramps?’ call, clearly showing I still need her rich parenting experience in my crazy adulthood days. The second is the ‘Mom, you won’t believe what happened on my way home!’ call, depicting the shared banter with my best friend, the one who can figure out the ridiculousness of adulting with the same humour. I thoroughly enjoy the shifting roles, because through that, we have become kindred spirits❤️. We seamlessly switch between these roles every other time, but there is one experience that vividly defined our bond, teaching me the true meaning of her unconditional love and support.
I remember landing an opportunity at a small mining advisory firm way before graduation, and at that age, it was ‘everything’ I thought I wanted. It felt like the promised land of adulting knowing that not many secure such opportunities that fast even after graduation. Plus I was going to be earning a fair amount of money. It honestly felt like a great deal. However, there was so much back and forth from the firm, I had to do follow ups after the first and second interviews, and the entire process felt disorganized in a way. This didn’t sit well with Mom. She kept asking me to think through it critically before committing, pointing out their lack of professionalism.
She wasn’t nagging at all. She was just using the wisdom of her own career struggles to spot the red flags. But I was so excited to start working after campus that I saw nothing but a great start to a career I was so passionate to pursue. I was already picturing myself in the artisanal underground mines, providing solutions.
I started working, and a month in, I still hadn’t signed the contract. Then came the weird request to draft my own Job Description and submit it to the admin. I shrugged it off as an administrative quirk, ‘Mom, they probably just don’t understand the role of a mining engineer!’ These weren’t alarming details to me, the eager soon-to-be graduate, but to her, they were glaring system dysfunctions that warned of greater underlying challenges.
The reality didn’t hit me all at once; it came crushing down slowly after a weird utterance today, and another one tomorrow. Every morning, my alarm clock would trigger a wave of anxiety that left me wondering if the famous corporate world was really that scary. I talked to Mom daily, sharing the dread, but desperately hoping that things would get better.
Then came the last straw that broke the camel’s back. I almost sobbed my eyes out that afternoon as the the whole weight of the past couple of months finally collapsed on me. I didn’t need advice from her on this day; I needed a shoulder to cry on.
Her response wasn’t “I told you so.” It wasn’t a firm call for immediate resignation (though I did eventually put in my two weeks’ notice🤭). It was the simplest, most profound statement of unconditional acceptance I’ve ever heard. She simply said, “I didn’t chase you away from home, babe. You’re allowed to come back when things get tough. There will always be food on the table, and home will always be open for you.”
In that moment, she allowed me to experience the loss, but became a cushion to the searing pain. I sobbed the entire ride home, not out of sadness for the job, but out of sheer gratitude for the woman on the other end of the line. She gave me the unspoken gift of knowing my safe place is not a physical house, but a home built on love; a home I can always return to, no matter how badly my adult plans fail.