One of Another 2021
My perception of my parents is morphing. I think a lot of parents pray that their children don’t see their flaws, because it’s heartbreaking when they do. But as I grow older and I begin to see them not only as parents but also as people, I cannot help but discover who they are as individuals.
When I was thirteen, I sat in the backseat of my mom’s Toyota next to my sister. My dad made a joke and chuckled the way he does, shoved my mom’s shoulder to tease her, and then he got out of the car. My mom watched him walk away with her cheek turned to the two of us, and she said, “I think your dad loves me more than I love him.”
When I try to reimagine this day, I can’t quite seem to hear anything. I just see her mouth moving and I hyperfocus on that monotonous expression on her face. I think that they are both lonely but in very different ways. Her friends became his friends. He only seems to go out when she’s there to encourage him to. She cooks. She cleans. She manages the finances. But he dominates the spaces within the house, and I don’t see a lot of her reflected in her home.
I entered this project with the intention of documenting both independence and codependency in my parent's relationship as a means of understanding as my perception of them evolves. Though, after spending hours staring at these photographs, I am finding that my subconscious was hard at work. These photographs illustrate my father’s dependency on my mother and my mother’s inner independence from him.
