"Mom, you are embarrassing me." This is the line I used up until yesterday, and I still use it. I remember running around when I was younger, trying to look at what my mom was cooking or watching or doing so I could do the same. Monkey see, monkey do, right?
She is the most embarrassing, weirdest, coolest, scariest, funniest, hottest woman to walk the earth around me. She is like my best friend, but I still lock myself in my room when she is in a bad mood because she scares us. She would pick me up from school, yelling out the window or try to be funny and drive away as I got in the car. When we were bad, we would pile in the car and go to "bad school" because she was teaching us a lesson. She laughs at herself, and she tries to be everything she can.
Everything I do, everything I learned, I got it from my momma. I love her, and you love yours. Moms aren't all that different. Imagine them at our age thinking, "Wow, what kind of mom am I gonna be?" Because my friends and I have thought the same thing. My mom did everything I did, and she has taught me from all her mistakes. From the awkward sex talk to coming home buzzed for the first time.
I saw pictures of my mom in her 20s with her high-waisted shorts that were shorter than mine and the top as short as my bra. So I laugh when she yells at me, but love her when she compliments me.
Spending time with her now is a blast, but I remember how different it was. It went from mommy and me day to drinking a glass of wine on a Friday night with her; having her drop me and my friends off at a concert to shot gunning a beer off the back deck, going to the same concert together; covering my ears during her talk about what not to do with boys to coming home from school telling her my every boy issue.
We all went from thinking mom would never understand our lives to going to them for everything we don't understand, knowing they would. Moms make the hard things look easy, the broken look fixed, and the growing up look fun when it sucks. Moms are tough, but they are humorous. From my mom holding my hand in long car rides to holding herself in the passenger seat teaching me how to drive. She taught me how to be safe, but brave.
Moms are the one thing that are comforting. The late night movies, the bear hugs, the kisses goodbye, and the endless love will never change. As we grow older the hugs grow longer, the goodbyes get more sad, and the friendship grows stronger.
Your mom is the one person you need for everything, and I mean everything. She is there to bring you the towel you forgot in the shower and toilet paper you need when you run out, be your therapist when you cry, and is your partner in crime. Moms are the ones who do everything for us, and we don't even realize it.
The words "thank you" aren't strong enough to express how much we appreciate and need them. We go through meeting and leaving behind so many people, but moms are the one who can never be forgotten, never can stay mad at, and never can stop loving. So I love my mom endlessly, and I got all I am today from my momma.
