How I Am My Mother

Happy Birthday Mom. This post is for you. 

Now, I know you do not read my blog that often, mostly because you are mega busy and partially because no one reads my blog that often, but I figured a blog post would be a unique part of my gift to you on your birthday this year. 

I know I have told you this before, but you are remarkable. I tell you every Mother's Day or every time your birthday swings around, but it is true. I write you lovely cards where I sit down and reflect on how lucky I am that you are mine. MY mother. ALL MINE. I always manage to write you a very deep and thought out letter describing your presence in my life and I know that you are always so grateful. I think I just want you to be constantly (well, twice a year) reminded of how much you mean to me and how you are simply the most amazing woman I know. 

I remember writing in the photo album I made you - the "thank you for throwing me a kick ass grad party and spending so much money on me to let me attend a private university in the fall" album - that I thought you were Super Woman. A year later and I still do. I always will. 

Pretend this quote from you know what is talking about you as my mother holding the universe together.

I think as I grow older I appreciate you even more. Every fight we get it (and let's be real here, there are not that many) I find them frivolous and usually my fault. Every time I leave you now to go off either to school or even a friend's house, I miss you. I really do. I may not say that enough but when I am away from you, I think about you constantly and hope that you are happy. Is that weird? Probably. But it has already been established on this blog that I am very weird - I mean, just look at the photo collage in my Embrace Messy Hair post or my 25 Things About Me post. 

I love our relationship. It is a deeply intimate and honest one compared to a lot of my friends' relationships to their mothers. I tell you everything, probably too much actually as you and I have both admitted. We go to each other to vent and gossip and pour our emotions into when we are having a shitty day. 

One of my favorite parts of our relationship is how much we ADORE Pride and Prejudice. It is our thing. I often make this fact known to the twitter-sphere, my friends, and other social groups/medias and I can tell that people probably wish they were watching their favorite movie with their mom all the time.

Another aspect of our relationship that I love is how similar we are. I am realizing with age that I am becoming you. Well, not exactly obviously, we do disagree on diet coke vs. diet coke with lime, but we are pretty damn close. I used to dream of being just like you when I grew up. I think that is why I loved being the "mom" in every situation I was in, whether it be when playing 'house' with my siblings or when in grade school trying to be the mature one (the peacemaker) when there was drama or when Connor would be playing outside and I would get so worried he was going to run away/get kidnapped that I would beg you to make him come in. I was teased and often labeled as the mom throughout grade school, but it hardly ever got to me. It was in my nature, to be motherly. And I liked being the one people would go to either to be comforted or to help them work out a solution. That's not to say it didn't hurt me to be teased by the dickhead boys and mean girls in my class; but, it never affected me for long and gave me  pretty tough skin. Even now in college my friends tell me I am extremely motherly. AND what about the little fact that I continually am cast as the FREAKING MOTHER in every play or scene I try out for (this past year of college I played the mother SIX times in various works). Even though I HATE being type-cast, I can't help but love being a mom. Even though sometimes I want someone else to figure out my problems for me, I can't help but love being the responsible, wise advice giver. Honestly, I LOVE my motherly tendencies and air, it is who I am. 

Especially in the last two years I have been thinking of how I would be lucky to become half the woman you are: as a mother, as a volunteer (you are SO generous and giving and humble - it is astounding), as a friend, as a confidant, and as a leader. As you know (but anyone else reading this post may not) I have been cleaning and organizing our storage room, which hasn't been touched in about five or six years. I find new things of yours everyday, mom. Things that were yours - journals, letters from dad when you were dating, yearbooks from high school, law school notebooks with doodles on the side of the loose leaf, hospital papers informing you that you were pregnant, photos from your childhood, receipts from shops back in your hometown, albums from your honeymoon, sympathy cards when your father died, sympathy cards when your mother died, happy mother's day cards from when Pat and I are toddlers (written cleverly by you or dad), etc. The list of things I keep finding goes on and on. I thought when I first began cleaning the room that it would be tedious, boring, messy work. But instead, it has turned into probably one of the best things I have ever done. I learn something new about you EVERY DAY. The fact that you allow me to read your notebooks/journals/letters is so incredible for me. I am getting to know you on a level that most children don't get from their parents. Your life has been filled with interesting experiences that I uncover and excitedly ask you about when you get home from work. And you are so excited to tell me about them. I'm not sure you realize how interesting, enlightening, and beautiful it is to hear those stories.

I can only hope that as I grow older and more mature, you will share with me more details of your own experiences as I experience my own version of things.

So, what more is there to say but that I love you. And I love you even more every single day. We were in Target the other day and I told you you were my favorite person on earth and I loved you more than anyone. You smiled and said, "Yeah, until you get married" and I responded with "and then start popping out some kiddos". We both laughed. I love your laugh.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday. How old are you again? 29? 30? Eh, doesn't matter. 

Remember, you da best and to stay gold, Ponyboy. 

Love ya.
xx 

P.S. I leave you with your favorite poem. Even though the meaning of it is not my meaning in writing this to you, it is still an insanely beautiful poem that is engraved in my mind because of how many times I have heard you recite it.