Just like a decent amount of college-aged males, I have no idea what to get my mom for Christmas. I know she likes to cook, so kitchen ware? No, it’ll just blend in with the rest of the pots and pans. She enjoys watching HGTV, so maybe some house…things? No, I don’t even know what interior design is. She loves forcing me to get up in the morning, so perhaps a megaphone? No, absolutely not, she’d take the joke to the next level and actually use it. I’m clueless. I need something a little more permanent, something that shows that I put a lot of thought into it, and, of course, that I appreciate her. After all, I wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for her.

I need to figure out an item that tells her I appreciate what she’s done for me over the 21 years I’ve been alive. Something that says “hey, even when I didn’t believe I could, you believed I could, and that made me achieve it.” Or that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her encouragement. I mean, what can you get your #1 cheerleader that really gets that message across?

Not only that, but I need something that will tell her how much I appreciate the lessons she’s taught me about being a kind and moral person. That it’s okay to be different and how to embrace my uniqueness. For winning fights and forcing me to learn how to be humble when I so fiercely resisted it. And despite my father’s masters in engineering and her own biology degree, encouraging me to pursue whatever made me happy.

But more than that, I want to get her something that shows that I recognize who she is, and how much she cares about me. At a very self-absorbed stage in life, I admittedly don’t think I explicitly show how much her caring labor means to me. It’s unfortunately very hard for me to give back at this point in life. I’m poor and away from home, so I must rely on my own creativity to present her with something grand, the creativity she taught me to harness when she let me take the reins whenever I had an idea as a kid.

But I’m at a creative standstill. I literally can’t think of any physical gift that could show her what I need it to.” But maybe I’m not looking for an item at all. Maybe I’ve already figured out what to get her. Something permanent and honest and from the heart. Maybe I’m looking at it right now.

I love you, mom, and thank you for everything.