My Mom Is Kind.

My mom is kind. Not the type of kind that holds doors and smiles as you pass by her. But the type that makes strangers into friends and friends into family. The type that remembers that thing that you mentioned the last time you crossed paths, and the type that asks how that is going for you.  I used to roll my eyes and tap my foot in annoyance over how long it’d take to leave a store after she’d run into familiar faces, but now I look back and admire her ability to notice so much about the world around her. 

She is also a really great friend. During the tough transition from high school to college, I would call my mom many times crying while she was working a 12 hour night shift. I would tell her how I needed to change my major again, or how I hated my roommate's boyfriend or how I always thought that I was failing at something. The next morning she would drive two hours, pull up to my dorm and take me to a hotel for the weekend. She would tell me that I am not supposed to have everything figured out and tell stories about how she didn’t know what she was doing when she was my age either. She would talk about how she went to college for a while and even played a sport, but how she felt that way too sometimes. She always showed up and made me feel better, telling me stories about her life before I had existed, and although it didn't change what I felt, it always made things feel less scary. 

My moms shoulders are somehow both soft and strong. Soft enough to allow for friends to cry upon them in times of need but also strong enough to hold them up in courageous acts of vulnerability. She doesn’t always understand the way I feel, or the level at which I feel some things but she always tries. And I can tell she tries because she always curves her brow up, nods her head and reaches out to me when I tell her hard things. 

And when she gives you a hug it feels like when you return home from a really long trip. I wish I was able to visit home more now. 

My mom is funny too. She is witty and sarcastic, but in a way that never offends or hurts people, a skill she inherited from grandma Dixie and one that I am still learning. I remember watching my mom always laughing with her friends, typically those she met while going to nursing school in her thirties, or sisters that she helped raise as the oldest of 7. And somehow through all the laughter and tears and memories made, those women turned into intimate support systems of my becoming. 

But my favorite thing about my mom is she never gives up, especially on people. 

She never points fingers or puts blame on people and she always tells me I can be whatever I want no matter how far behind I feel. She understands that life is complicated and that growing up in your 20s is no easy feat, but she always says that life is about the people next to you and all the memories you create with them. 

Sometimes when I’m with my own friends I think of how right my mom is about all of that. 

When Tori giggles at frivolous hypotheticals, or Emma brings thoughtful logic into advice giving, or how Allie cries with you when your both happy or sad, and how Amanda radiates confidence that seems contagious even though she lives in Chicago now, or how Grace makes you feel like you’re always enough because she likes being next to you or how it's impossible not to feel important when Dasha goes out of her way to check in with you, even though you don't always see her as much as you'd wish. 

Lately, I just think a lot about how my mom lived this life too, and how I feel so deeply these are people I want to hold onto through the ups and downs of womanhood, and how someday maybe I will tell my daughter all about how so much of life is female companionship and she will feel all the support of her moms “old friends” too.

I have come realize that we are all people created by the people around us, and I just really love the people around me. 

And if I love the people around me this much, I can only love, even more, the person they help me to be.

And if all goes right, maybe someday I can be a lot like my mom.