Mom Cosplay

Monday May 18, 2026

Well, dear reader, it’s been a while. I think I wrote in a previous post that I only feel like writing when I’m hurting. And that’s certainly true today. Now, I’ve had some hurt in my life in the year and a half since my last post about Merry the boy hobbit, as we all have – but maybe this is different. Maybe this is the kind of hurt that can only be soothed by the clickety clack of my Apple Magic Keyboard (hashtag not an ad) and a new ear piercing or a dramatic haircut. You get it. This is the real world, not an episode of Gilmore Girls – sometimes things are just sucky and there’s no promise that they will suck less tomorrow. So for now, that’s the only thing I am really asking the universe for – for a tomorrow that doesn’t suck more. And I guess I should also thank the universe for this soul-soothing keyboard and iPad and this dumb site where some of you come to check in on me. Thank you for being here.

I really like the show Love on the Spectrum on Netflix (hashtag not an ad), and a few of the stars of that show really enjoy doing cosplay. They dress up as their favorite comic book characters or stormtroopers or whatever and then spend the day with other people who also enjoy their hobby. It’s quite lovely – people being authentically themselves while pretending to be someone else. Here’s a photo of my favorite LOTS star, Dani dressed up as Rainbow Dash. She spent two seasons of LOTS trying to find her soulmate and ended up with a firefighter. So, honey, there’s hope for us.

I’ve never done cosplay before minus some baller Halloween costumes. But I understand the appeal. It’s a chance to be a little silly and spend some time curating the perfect costume. Sometimes you get to do elaborate hair and makeup, which is often the BEST part of leaving the house. You get to spend the day surrounded by people who won’t judge you because you’re all pretending and being silly together. No gawkers or judgement. It’s nice. I think the Renaissance Faire is probably a similar vibe. You can probably also use it as an excuse to get some food and beer, which is hard to beat (as I look outside at the 90 degree day we have in the DMV today).

For the last year, I’ve joked with people around me that I’ve been cosplaying as a mom. A 13 year old came into my life through my relationship with her dad. I won’t mention her name here because this is my story, not hers. But I fell in love with her. I am trying to think about the last year of knowing her, and so many of the moments when I have smiled from the inside out – you know, that goofy feeling that comes over you when you are feeling joy from your head to your feet – have been because of her. I felt it when I would come out of my work to a text from her telling me that she got all of her homework done. I felt it when she texted me to “peep that math grade” in her school’s dumb, annoying, terrible Schoology app. I felt it when her best friend thought I was cool and wanted to spend a day with me painting pottery and having “fancy girl dinner”. I felt it when she would text me at night to tell me that she had dinner already but “I didn’t have a sweet treat yet, sooooo.”

I have no idea how to be a mom now, and I certainly didn’t a year ago. I’ve learned a lot though. I learned that 13 year olds are stubborn and wild and joyful and silly in all these wonderful ways. I learned that she would dig her heels in on anything she didn’t WANT to do and would spend more time arguing over doing a task than it would take to actually do a task. I re-learned that teenagers have bad days too and sometimes don’t feel like leaving the house. I learned what 6-7 means. I learned how to “clock it.” I found a flavor of Alani that I can’t live without. I learned that the best highlighter at Ulta is Benetint Cookie. I learned that she can run like a gazelle but has zero hustle when it comes to getting dressed to go somewhere. I learned that I wear “too much make up” and “mew” in my selfies. I learned that she’s so smart and can make the honor roll when someone helps her keep track of her assignments. I learned that she will manipulate you and play dumb while doing math so you will give her the answer. I learned that a parent can easily go broke from Crumbl cookie. I learned that just because she never cried didn’t mean she was never hurt. I learned that the trick to get boys to like you is to give them free gum.

I spent a lot of nights awake thinking about my role in her life. Not her mom, but acting like her mom. Constant overthinking about whether I was too involved or not involved enough. Constant worry that I wasn’t doing enough. Worrying that Christmas wouldn’t be special. Worrying that my relationship with her would deteriorate when I constantly badgered her over her homework. Worrying that I couldn’t be the glue that would hold her and her dad together and then calling myself a narcissist for thinking that was my role.

It felt like cosplay so much of the time. When I took her and her friend on a weekend outing, I felt so nervous when I texted her friend’s mom to see if she was available. I questioned how some stranger could trust me to take her kid out. I met the mom in her garage when we went to pick up our friend and the first thing I said to her was “I am new at this Mom stuff” and then felt silly for even using that word. I would email teachers about assignments, thinking “I hope they don’t ask questions and find out I’m not her mom.” Sometimes she was angry, sometimes she didn’t want her cosplay mom. “She’s not my mom, dad…stop calling her that.” And other times she texted me first thing on Friday afternoon “what time are you coming over?” I spent so much mental energy trying to figure out how to get her on top of her schoolwork. I asked my friends for advice and bought her a Skylight calendar (hashtag not an ad but if you have kids in school you need one) to add her work to every day – never really knowing if I was being helpful or annoying and nagging too much. She would get angry with me while we were struggling through her school list and I would wonder if I was taking it too far and not giving her enough slack. Then the report card came and I saw how proud she was of herself. Even cosplaying as a mom is a constant rollercoaster, never knowing if you’re doing the right thing. Never knowing if you’re too much or not enough.

Now that it’s all over and my time in her life is decidedly over -I keep thinking about all the things she taught me and the parts of my heart that she opened. I keep thinking about what I would do differently. She didn’t ask for me to come into her life and she didn’t ask for me to leave it. She has no control of it, and that’s a constant struggle in childhood- feeling like major things are happening in your life that you have no control over or say in. I hope she will look back on our year together and feel glad that it happened but that’s something I can’t control either. I hope she will know how much I love her and how much I loved cosplaying as her mom. Maybe I’ll be a real mom some day and that child will have a better mom because of all the things she taught me while I was doing cosplay. I honestly don’t regret anything and have never experienced more joy and purpose in my life before becoming her cosplay mom.

I hope my heart will heal soon, this is one of the toughest things I have ever grieved. I didn’t outline this one like I usually do with these posts because everything felt too raw to do anything but start typing. A dear friend told me that heartbreak has a purpose. I think this sentiment really only rings true if you’re religious, and I am not. But maybe in this moment I will allow myself to believe it just this one time.