Blog #44: The test

I was 16 when Mama told me that we would be moving for the 5th time. And the biggest change of all, we’d be moving in with her boyfriend and his son. It’s not that I disliked our new family (okay, I admit my step brother and I were less than friendly), I just preferred our simple life, mother and daughter. Your regular Gilmore Girls. Not to mention, I was a senior in high school with a 10 minute commute to school. The new house was an hour drive away from my school, friends, boyfriend, i.e. my whole life (how could this possibly get worse?).

I remember the painful process of packing my whole life yet again. This always included a sweep and a purge of all the things I didn’t need any more. One day, I got home from school and noticed Mama had the strangest composure. I thought she had spent the day packing, but her mood indicated that something terrible happened. What exactly? I had no clue. But I had a gut feeling that I was the problem, and she wouldn’t let me off easily. 

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” she asked, stone faced.

“Uhh… do you have something you want to tell ME?” I retorted.

Instead of spilling, she was so angry that she actually took me to a public place to continue the conversation. I was sweating BULLETS, I tell you. A million thoughts ran through my mind, the primary one being “my life is surely over.” 

We finally sat down at a local restaurant when she revealed the evidence:

She found my unused pregnancy test. 

My heart dropped into my stomach. How could this be?! I thought I got rid of it! It had been months since I last saw it. And why was she digging into my stuff in the first place??

I carefully tried to explain that despite using protection for my first time, the stress I had about getting my next period was strong enough to delay the period -- further convincing me that I was pregnant. I got that pack of tests and only used one. When it came back negative, I didn’t think to use the second one. So I hung onto it, stupidly.  

The only things she gleaned from that story were how I secretly had sex for the first time, went behind her back to get tested, and lied to her face. In our girl world, not sharing was the equivalent of lying. But let’s be honest -- what teenage daughter is quick to tell her mom the ONE thing that she’s been told not to do her whole life? And what about the part where I used protection? And the part where I tested negative? I gave my crying plea to no avail. I was grounded as hell. No phone, no friends, and absolutely no boyfriend. 

I keep coming back to this moment. There’s something that I never fully processed, and I think it manifests as pervasive intimacy problems. My mom eventually forgave me, but I’m not sure if I ever forgave myself. A part of me still hesitates before I completely surrender to a feeling. Guilt wraps around me like a too-tight blanket, the kind that’s meant to protect, but instead squeezes the last breath from my body. As a grown woman, I deserve to own my sexuality, but that part of me is still in development (maybe it always will be). I was taught that sex leads to getting pregnant, which leads to tossing my dreams away. It’s a lot harder to unlearn something than it is to learn.

Although Mama had good intentions of protecting my freedom as a young woman without children, she instilled a fear in me that still lingers. At the same time, I recognize the hurt she felt when I hid the most intimate part of my life from her. We told each other everything. Maybe if I was honest with her when it happened, we could’ve avoided the whole ABC Family episode. 

Recalling this in my solitude reminds me of my greatest heartache, losing her. Mama was taken from this Earth too early. She will never get to meet me as Maya, the grown-up. No kids, two cats, and a committed life partner to my high school sweetheart. We will never get to recall that distant memory, and laugh about how silly it all was. 

The world has not been so kind in Mama’s absence. We’ve experienced a global pandemic, reversal of Roe v. Wade, consistent injustices to people and the land, genocide of Palestian people, devastating wildlifes, and now the orange guy is back in office. In Trump’s America, women do not have the federal right to abortion. They’d love to take away our access to contraception too. Even in this modern age, a mother’s earnest warning to never have unprotected sex could help her child avoid the intense reality of unplanned parenthood. The truth is that some people are not meant to be parents, and taking women’s bodily autonomy will only increase these instances. It crushes my soul to think about this and the many other lasting effects of a second Trump presidency.

When I’m at a low point, I often return to gratitude. I’m deeply grateful to have had the mother, the best friend, I did. As much as we fought over silly teenager stuff, I’m grateful that she cared enough to fight. Whenever she reprimanded me, she would always couple it with: “You’ll understand why I’m so hard on you when you have a daughter one day.” A genuine consolation. It didn’t take me having daughters to eventually understand her. I see where her fierce protectiveness came in to save the day, sometimes unbeknownst to me. It wasn’t about control, it was about equipping me for life’s uncertainties. She couldn’t prevent the world from crashing down on me, but she could ensure that I had everything I needed to create my own protective forcefield.

I’m 25 now--the same age my mom was while pregnant with me. I can’t imagine being pregnant with a second child at this age. My independence is golden; almost all of my time goes toward making myself a better person and plotting my course to saving the world. I’m forever grateful that my mom encouraged me to take this divine path of my own making. 

I can admit that the pregnancy test she found was a test of our relationship and everything she had instilled in me. Honesty, preparedness, control over my fate. I remember hating every moment of that painful conversation, but I’m old enough to smile and laugh at it now. After a moment of motherly teasing, I think she would join me in that too.