I Love My Mom

I just  got off the phone with my Mom after an hour long conversation of her listening to me go on about my worries, my fears, and all of the things that I can’t deal with in life. She listened, and agreed, and encouraged. I didn’t realize it until after we hung up but she said “I’m so proud of you” at least three times within that conversation. To be hones it almost fell on deaf ears for me. Not that it doesn’t mean the world to me to make my mother proud. I mean shit even when I’m furious at her I still secretly love it when she brags to her friends that her baby is on the radio. A career that I damn well know would never have happened if not for her equal parts believing in me, and in the same breath threatening to kick me out on my ass of I didn’t make something of the daughter that she raised.

I’ve become such a hard well-oiled machine in the last year that whenever someone praises me I often glaze it over in a humble nod or a quick huff because truthfully…

If someone is proud of you then you can also let them down.

But my Mom said it still, three times in one hour. “I’m so proud of you.” Almost as if she wanted me to soak it in, to finally hear it once and for all.

And it did this time Mommy.

You’re not just proud of me for my accomplishments. You’re proud of me for getting knocked on my ass, for getting kicked while on said ass, and then covered with dirt while I was down… and never giving up.

Mom are you surprised? I’m YOUR daughter.

I think back to what I what I remember my mom was at my age. Hell she was even younger than I am now with two kids as a single mom struggling to get by.

Hot dogs and ramen noodles for dinner, coupled with happy times and our first Cabbage Patch dolls. My doll had short curly blonde hair and her name was Thelma. Man was Mom happy to give us those dolls. She had that same beaming giddy-girl grin that she does now when she gives her beloved  grandchildren a big present. Only now she doesn’t have to scrap for it.

And why??

BECAUSE SHE’S A BADASS!!!!!!

She’s kinda like that Drake lyric “We started from the bottom and now were here.”

Those words that lately have been impenetrable to my brain are now ringing in my ears…

“I’m proud of you”

The last few years have been really rocky for my Mom and I. But I guess that’s the tale of time for mothers and their children. I have no doubt in my mind that Lyric and I will go through our peaks and valleys…but no matter how much my Mom and I fight, no matter how many times we hang up on each other in anger. Not matter how many times we scream or need to take a break from each other…

MOM, I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud to be your daughter. I love you Mommy.