I’ll Call Tomorrow
Dec 10, 2025
Author: Maisie Page
Editor: Rachel Roseberg
There’s a certain kind of tired that hits at 10:13 p.m. – the kind that seeps in not just behind your eyes, but deep in your chest too. It's not exhaustion, it’s something more subtle. Less dramatic and less talked about. A little ache that searches for comfort in the form of a familiar voice.
Sometimes I just want to smell what my mom made for dinner. Something Cuban. Something that tastes like home. Sometimes I just want to hear my dad say, “hi daughter” in response to my sassy “hi father”. I want to hear my little brother laugh like he did when he was still shorter than me and a ball of never-ending energy.
And I could call. I should call. I just – I have things to do. I’ll call tomorrow.
The guilt is subtle at first. Like a notification I swipe away without opening immediately. But it grows. It collects in the back of my mind until I can’t escape it. Missed calls, unanswered texts, reminders I snooze like the 8am alarms I don’t want to wake up to. I want to believe I’m independent, thriving, busy in a good way, and I want them to believe that too. I want to seem like I’m always okay. So I wait until I am okay to call. Which means I don’t call as often as I want, as I should.
And yet I still need them. In the adult kind of way. The when-I’m-tired-and-lying-on-my-floor kind of way. The “I don’t know why I’m crying but I just am” kind of way. There is no Band-Aid that can fix this feeling. Small distractions can help, but sometimes even the warm feeling of cooking dinner with my roommates can’t rid me of the feeling. I’m left with the quiet realization that I still need to sit on the blue, wooden stool in our kitchen and watch my parents move around it as I have so many times before. My mom with flour on her shirt. My dad with the dish towel on his shoulder.
My mom, who does a million things at once, but still knows when something’s off with me, even through the phone. Who reminds me I’m not alone, even when I try to act like I’ve got it all figured out. I try to copy some of her recipes here, but they never truly taste like home.
My dad, who still owns a flip phone and answers it every single time I call, even when he’s in a meeting or driving home from work. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t say a lot but always says exactly what I need to hear. His calm makes things feel a little less stressful. Just hearing him pick up is enough to make things feel more okay than they did a few minutes ago.
They’re both photographers. And now, so am I, without even meaning to be. I frame moments the way they do because it's the only way I know how. Frame the subject. Catch the real moments. I didn’t know how much of them I carried until I left home and had to start reaching back.
Now, I schedule phone calls like meetings. Block out time in my calendar. Set alarms. And yet, those conversations are the softest part of my day. They are a pause. A breath. An “I’m still your kid”, tucked between all of my classes and exams.
It scares me sometimes, how fast everything is moving. How my parents are also aging, even when I’m not looking. How my little brother suddenly has a deep laugh now, not just a giggle. I don’t want to miss anything. But I also don’t know how to slow it down.
So I tell myself I’ll call tomorrow. And then the next tomorrow. And the one after that. I’ll call every chance I get – not because anything’s wrong, but because it's not. Because I want to tell my mom I tried to make her Picadillo and it came out wrong. Because I want to tell my dad, “Hi father” and hear him answer with the usual, “Hi daughter.”
