I'd like to start this post with one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life.
This may be a hard thing to believe but, once upon a time, I was a very nerdy fifth grader. A very nerdy fifth grader who was incredibly self-conscious about her eyebrows. And so, one day, very confused about the finer details of body hair removal, I decided to take matters into my own (not incredibly coordinated) hands. Armed with a disposable, pink Daisy razor, I did what is probably (to those of you with more common sense) the unthinkable. I took that shit to my face. For some reason, I was convinced that by running it over one eyebrow, I would just take off a few of the excess hairs. Long story short, I looked in the mirror to find that was not the case. I had shaved off the majority of my left eyebrow. I stayed in the bathroom for about three hours, until finally my mom came in. After finding out what happened and attempting not to completely lose it laughing at how ridiculous I looked, she helped me. We ended up shaving off both eyebrows, so that I would look... a little less crazy? For a full four months of my fifth grade education, I showed up to elementary school with two cartoonish, penciled in chola eyebrows, courtesy of Mom. You can even check out my school picture for proof, or just ask my sister. This is one of her favorite things to tell my friends when she first meets them.
As amusing and mortifying as this anecdote is, I'm not (really) sharing it for laughs. I am sharing it to say a little something about my mother. I bet this is a problem no other mother I know had to deal with, and she took it all in stride. (After about twenty minutes spent doubled over chuckling... I did look really goofy.) That's the kind of woman my mother is. I am someone who has spent her entire life getting herself into weird situations and ridiculous problems. And my wonderful, loving mother has spent that same amount of time helping me out of them.
This is a thank you, Mom. For the rides to dance classes and voice lessons, lacrosse practice and birthday parties, auditions and after school rehearsals, and letting me sing whatever I wanted at full volume the whole way there. (Probably a lot longer that you should have had to; I'm still working on that one!) For all the times that you laughed through Breanne and I trying to beat each other with massive pork loins in Sam's Club, calling each other weird things and repeating that really vulgar Steve Austin gesture way too many times in the summer of 1998. Thank you for every french braid and packed lunch, every over the top musical I begged you to take me to, every single time that you told me my underwear was hanging out, every lame teen movie you sat through with us, every time that we kept you up til the wee hours of the morning shouting nonsense at each other. Thank you for tortoise sitting and exam food deliveries and teaching me to like vegetables, for the million and one trips to the library, for letting me make ridiculous messes in the kitchen every time I was learning to cook. Thanks for the life advice and the editing of every essay I ever wrote, just in case.
Thank you for helping me to appreciate the joy of laughing out loud and what really good fried chicken tastes like. Thanks for teaching me to dream big and letting me do so, even when I got a little too crazy. Thank you for supporting every adventure, every pipe dream, every monologue and science experiment. I thank you, more than I could ever express in these simple little words, for taking care of me for the past twenty years, helping me grow into the loud, weird person I have become, and loving me for it anyways. I could not have asked for anyone better. Happy Mother's Day :)
