Yesterday was my Mother's birthday, but I unfortunately didn't see her as I had classes and she worked. Luckily I'll be seeing her this weekend, and I hope to make the absence up to her. My Mom's a really cool lady, and I will always be grateful to her. She always taught me to accept people the way they are and let differences be, and was always accepting of my friends and all of the random phases I went through during the years. She wasn't a pushover, often setting rules when she knew it was for my own good, but she also wasn't overbearing, letting me do things even if she really didn't approve of it. Not many mothers take their 16 year old daughter to let her get her eyebrow pierced, especially when said mother won't let the daughter walk home from high school due to the discovery of the Megan's Law website (I live near a LOT of ex rapists). She's an enigma, and I think I get a lot of my oddities from her, which is both a blessing and a curse, depending on who you ask.
It always surprised me that she was so liberal minded. After all, she grew up on military bases in the Southwest, which isn't really the land of breeding tolerance. But she never judged against my gay friends, never really raised an eyebrow when I went goth, didn't care a bit about interracial dating, and managed to be the only person to not jump to conclusions when I would go hang out with my high school Calculus teacher on weekends, even though he was 30+ years my senior. When I told her that I was converting to Hinduism, she didn't freak out, just asked me some questions about what that meant then pretty much decided to let it be. I hope that when I have children, I can learn from her example and raise my kids in the same kind of environment, teaching them to stay away from the things that really harm you (drugs, gangs, bad hair dye decisions) and show them how you can have fun while being true to yourself and respectful of the people around you.
Happy Birthday Momma San. I hope everyone out there can see how awesome you are. <3
No comments:
Post a Comment