My mother once had a driver’s license that was permanently bent from being kept inside her pocket. I remember holding it while she drove, studying the photo because I thought nothing could be as beautiful as her. Sometimes I would slide it between the sofa cushions when I played pretend store, acting like I was her in the picture. Other times, I would balance it on its little curve during my own micro Olympics, cheering for the card to stay upright.
Once, she forgot her license at home. I still remember the panic in her voice when she realized. She told me it was illegal to drive without it, that there were consequences, and that explanation felt enormous to my small mind. It seemed strange that a thin piece of plastic could hold proof of someone’s ability to drive.
My father had many cards with his photo on them too. A driver’s license, work IDs, and cards I did not understand. None of his were bent. They lived neatly in his wallet, tucked into small protective sleeves. As a child, I thought carrying a wallet meant carrying all the skills you had earned. It looked like responsibility itself. I did not question why my mother’s card lived in her pocket rather than in a wallet. I only thought she was brave.
…
Lately, I have been thinking about these documents, the laminated symbols that define access. A passport opens borders. A student ID opens classrooms. Each is a ticket to a different kind of freedom.
I thought about this while watching Mustang, a Turkish film by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. It follows five orphaned sisters growing up under the control of their extended family in a conservative village. Their lives shrink with every rule imposed upon them, from what they wear to how they sit to where they go. It shows that control can be quiet and that violence does not always need brute force to leave a mark.
There is one scene I cannot forget. The youngest sister learns to drive long before she is old enough to have a license. That scene brought me back to my mother’s bent driver’s license and the games I played with it. That card once symbolized her independence. Now I see it as something more, proof that she made her own space in a world that was not built for it. I’m not talking about the sizing of women’s pant pockets, haha.
My mother’s life does not mirror those girls’ stories exactly, but there quite a few similarities. I see the slow unravelling of rules across generations. I see how my sister and I were raised with freedoms our mother had to create for herself.
The night I finished my graduate school applications, I told my mom this story, and we laughed about her old license. She is my friend as much as she is my mother. It reminded me that the choices I have, to study, work, and live without permission, are the quiet privileges I have inherited from someone whose goals stretched far beyond her own lifetime (mad respect). The life I live now is shaped by what my parents created for my siblings and I, and it has become the foundation for the choices I now get to make.
Digital Dugme 