To my mom.

After getting off the phone with my mom today I had a revelation about growing up. We spoke about this mix up with our phone bill (one of the many ways she still supports me) and I was driving home and thinking about our relationship and the phases its gone through. For those of you who know my mom, we're a lot alike in both looks and personality. For the most part, we've always gotten along, but we've had rough patches (like most teenage girls and their mothers). The hardest part about fighting with my mom is that we fight the same way, we're both overly sensitive and extremely defensive. Sometimes I feel like I might just accomplish the same goal if I stand in front of the mirror and scream at myself. Along with our personalities, we're both major home bodies. There have been so many weekends over the last several years where we will just lay in her bed for hours upon hours watching lifetime movies and crime TV. These are some of the best memories I have and the reason I'm getting teary writing this. If you've been around my mom and I, you know that there's a lot of sarcasm, but a ton of laughter. The sad thing that I'm coming to realize is that I'm getting older, I'll be moving out in a little over a year and there won't be a lot of these times once I'm forced to be an adult. I think back to the times where I would get so mad at her for reasons I can't even remember now and wish I could just erase that portion of my life. For every time I've made her feel bad, for every time I made her cry and for every time I was too stubborn to listen to what she said to me I wish I could just take back. For me growing up isn't hiding that those things ever happened, but realizing just how much my mom has done for me and being grateful for that. She sacrificed to make sure I never missed a school dance, a class trip, a concert I wanted to go and all other things that I really could have gone without. I appreciate my mom a lot more than I probably ever did in the past and hope that I can have the same closeness with my daughter one day.