As I get older, I am realizing just exactly how lucky I am to have you as my mom. Despite my angsty middle school phase where I could not stand you, you love has stood the test of time. Somewhere along the endless celebrations and seemingly never-ending hard times, I've racked up a laundry list of thank-yous that are long overdue.

To start, thank you for putting up with me for the last 20 years.

I am not always the ray-of-sunshine the public gets to see, and I'm not always the easiest to agree with. I'm admittedly one of (if not the most) stubborn people to walk this Earth, and somehow, you've managed to handle that with ease, which is a talent I have yet to find in anyone else.

Thank you for always watching the Golden Girls or Hallmark movies with me, even if they are the most cheesy love stories of them all.

Thank you for raising me to be strong and resilient to all life throws my way. As the strongest person I know, I have seen you persevere through even the toughest of times, yet you continue to bounce back time and time again. It is that kind of resilience that I hope to model and hopefully pass on to those around me.

Thank you for only sometimes getting annoyed when I ask you to take the long way home.

Thank you for working your ass off to make sure I have everything I could ever want or need. Working full time while raising a child on your own is no easy feat, but you made it look easy. And I'd say I turned out pretty well, but I might be a little biased.

Thank you for cheering me on every step of the way and never shooting down my crazy and sometimes outlandish ambitions. Your smile is contagious, and you never fail to light up a room or cheer me up when needed. I could recognize your laugh from a mile away.

Thank you for 20 years of obnoxiously sung duets with the windows down.

Thank you for traveling the world with me and appreciating all it has to offer. But more importantly, thank you for teaching me to appreciate it. It's all about the little things, and you are the first person to point that out.

Thank you for reminding me that how much money you have and how you look does not define you as a person. Along those same lines, thank you for teaching me to treat everyone with respect and not talk down to those who are less fortunate, a common deficiency I have found among my peers.

Thank you for encouraging me to show my emotions instead of holding them in, and thank you for being the best therapist, even if that just means listening to me complain for a while. I am so lucky to have you there for me at all hours of the day, even if I am two hours away.

Thank you for keeping me grounded and making sure that I'm never too overwhelmed with my hectic schedule. It's no secret that I'm stressed on the daily, but thank you for continuously reminding me that it's okay to take time for my self. I'm only this young once, and it's already flying by, so I might as well make the most of it.

Thank you for making a home and a safe haven.

It is a long-stated joke that people are afraid of becoming like their mother, but I don't think I would mind all that much. You deserve a million more thank yous, but I can sum them all up in one: thank you for all that you do and all that you are. I cannot imagine that I would have made it this far without you by my side. My cheerleader. My therapist. My duet partner. My best friend. My mom.

Thank you.