Happy [fucking] Mother’s Day

The server had crouched down, and was now eye-level to me, as I sat in the booth with my four year old. His face instantly softened, and his expression turned to one of something I could only interpret as performative sympathy. Whatever this man was about to tell me—it was entirely for his benefit, aligning with whatever narrative he’s created for me, in his little primate brain.

“Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day,” he said to me, softly drawled out and with furrowed brows, as if it was an apology.

He said it to me in the same manner in which we look at cancer survivors, and congratulate them on their strength and bravery.

He said it to me in the way Richard Gere’s character speaks to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, after he’s saved her from her horrible existence.

He looked at me the same way all unattractive, childless, single men look at me when I’m alone with my daughter—as if I am a sob story, and they’ve got me all figured out.

People like that wear their attempts at extending empathy on their foreheads, like a hand-painted billboard on a remote highway, that reads “JESUS SAVES,” with “TRUMP 2024” underneath. A modern-art visual of cognitive dissonance.

Today, I’ve been a mother for four years, five months, and eleven days…