Tag Archives: growth

Virtues from Motherhood: Thank you Mom

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A decade ago I was 17, rebellious and determined to do everything my parents (really my mom) did not want me doing. I was hell bent on being everything that pushed their buttons and made their hair grey. A decade later I’m at dinner with my mom and some of our co-workers. Our co-workers remember me before I was a polished office manager and adult, they remember the days my mom was running out of work to come find me or clean up whatever mess I was making that week. They remember a time where my mom was crying because I was running my life into the ground, and not because I was making her laugh at the dinner table.

I spent most of my adolescence running from her and from everything she was (and is I suppose) but the older I get the more I realize we carry many of the same traits. Nothing makes this more apparent to me then the way our co-workers compare us. Before my mom took her current job, her and I were both office managers. We both ran offices and attended the same meetings and met the same deadlines. Though we never worked together the people who work with us have seen both of us in action. So when someone says “you’re just like your mom” I used to cringe, but now I smile because her traits have enabled me to excel to the levels I have now. Her leadership has been embedded in me since I was a child, but as a teenager I was running wild with it, rather than building a future for myself.

Why am I taking this trip down memory lane? Well two reasons, not everyone has their mother, not everyone has that unconditional love and support of the woman who raised them. Some people have lost their mother both physically and/or emotionally, and I can’t imagine how much that sucks. I also can’t imagine where I would be had my mother not fought so hard to keep me on the right path, and no matter how hard I fought to stray from it, she followed me deep into whatever forest I wanted to explore. The other reason being, I’m glad that i have finally reached a place with my mom where we can go to dinner, where I can talk to her and have conversations and that she is finally proud of me as a person and as a mother.

As you read through this blog post, remember that every mother shows love differently and sadly sometimes not every mom has it in them to be there, but mine does, and I’m thankful. If you have your mom, whether it be upstairs from you or states away, be grateful. And if you don’t have your mom, I am truly sorry, but remember as the child it is not your job, nor is it your responsibility to make her a parent. Remember that no matter where the path may lead you that she does love you, but she might have to do it from afar because she doesn’t know how to express it to you, and that the universe will put people that love you in many other ways in your life, you will never be alone.

Lastly, remember that we are carbon paper to our parents, we are imprints of their qualities both good and bad, yes there are some days I want to rip my eyes out of my head because of my mom, but those days pale in comparison to the days we can go out to dinner together now, because there are far less rip your eyes out days now than when I was a teenager.

Virtues from Motherhood: You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be

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Have you ever caught your reflection in a passing car or store window? Have you ever gotten lost in thought and wondered how you got where you stand today and think back to those pivotal moments you’re sure changed the course of events in your life? Yeah, me too. It’s crazy to think how quickly we made those choices in the heat of the moment and how big they impacted our lives and I often wonder why I’ve ended up here, am I doing this right? I spent a lot of time micro managing what I did that I forgot to stop and breathe, stop and realize we are exactly where we’re supposed to be at this moment. Sometimes years later we can look back and see why a friendship ended or why we were laid off from a job, because those things ending made room in our lives for bigger and better things.

Too often human beings spend so much of their time banging on closed doors, or weeping outside of them, that they lose the ability to see the colors on the road ahead and life becomes gray. In that gray corridor we tend to lose ourselves in a flurry of “what ifs” and “why me’s” and as hard as it is to do, we have to shut those little voices of doubt down. It isn’t easy, in fact the hardest thing we as human beings have to do is learn to mourn the loss of someone who is still alive, without loosing ourselves in the process. We have to make peace with the fact that everyone we love may not be for us and in the ever revolving sphere that is life, people sometimes go and do not return, and that is okay. When you catch sight of yourself in a store window, instead of noticing what’s missing, I challenge you to notice what’s gained.

Instead of looking down, look up and count the good, instead of saying something has taken you too long to finish credit yourself for finishing at all. Everyone’s clock is different, your 25 is not the same as your moms, your siblings or your best friend’s and to compare and contrast the lives and progress of totally different human beings is counter productive. Count things on a scale that makes sense to your life, you cannot weigh grains of rice on a scale meant to weigh an elephant. Understand that time moves at a pace that is right for you and nobody can tell you that it’s taking you too long to reach a goal or heal a wound, it is your life and as long as you’re trying, you’re progressing.