My grandmothers daughter, the woman meant to be my mother, loves to compare us to Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
Yet, we haven’t spoken since…well, I am simply not sure when. 

Perhaps, she is having imagined conversations with the idea of a daughter who is not me. 

My grandmothers daughter wears the face of someone who regrettably married her high school sweetheart out of obligation to a second pink line on a $10 stick. 
Her body weighs heavy with the weight of a cheating husband and disappointment of a distant daughter, and 
her face tells on her with frown lines that run as deep as our family’s generational trauma. 
My grandmothers daughter sounds a lot like, “Does this shirt make me look fat?” and cries behind closed dressing room doors. 
I can hear the burdensome rise and fall of her shoulders, 
of the salty tears running a marathon down her face, 
of the hard thud of a shirt being thrown onto the floor. 

And, hey, quick confession: My grandmothers daughters daughter sounds a lot like silence.

My grandmothers daughter loves to brag about her daughter on Facebook, but 
never seems to have anything nice to say face-to-face…or anything to say at all. 
I am still trying to decide what I prefer more: my grandmothers daughters failed attempts to connect through judgment or discordant silence.
Yet, as I age, I am beginning to see my hair gray where my grandmothers daughters did. 
Our frown lines twin, and I now understand that this is an inheritance neither of us asked for.
This is my mothers first time being alive, and I am trying to unlearn the shape of her sadness. 

So this year, I made myself a promise to not extinguish my birthday candles with tears brought on by the fear of aging into my mother. 
Instead, I will try to morph my frown lines into smile lines while there’s still time. 
I will turn the camera toward my friends because that is what I want to remember when I am on my deathbed.
I will let the candles be blown out by the burst of my laugh