Mom

(NOTE: This post is intended for mom. Yes, you can read it..but its not for you. Yes, I could send her an e-mail but since I just found out she reads my blog I feel like putting it on here)

I don't know where to start. I wish my gratitude, love, respect, and so on showed through my actions/words more than it does. I feel it inside, but unfortunately don't think that's so easily visible on the outside.

You have always been the image of perfection in my eyes (despite the hair in the 1981 Odessan, which was before my time anyway :)
(I wish I knew more about you actually....as in I love hearing you tell stories about yourself, you and dad, etc.)
But what kind of standard is set for a miscevious boy when he hears that his mother basically never did anything bad growing up (that may have sounded odd..cause i don't exactly remember the story you told about stealing(?) one item from someone but having to return it later. But basically the point was that you did do a bunch of bad things.)
Obviously, this didn't click until a certain age. I really have no idea why. It's not like I said "hey, I just got kicked out of a store for trying to steal some cards...guess that's bad and I won't do that again". Nope, more like "well I'm lucky he didn't call the cops like he said he could have, mom and dad are gonna be pissed".
But somewhere along the way it obviously did click.

I've written a few papers about role models in my life. I know an early one was about your dad and another one was about you.

I'm sort of getting lost with my thoughts here so you can just read them and organize them yourself.

1. It almost hurts inside sometimes to see what you put yourself through to help the ones you love.
I would have to say that at least once a day I look around at what I've got (I'm talking just about the stuff I've got here in my room) and it hits me that other people don't have it this good.

We talked about how I always work more hours than the other students I work with. Maybe you can see where I get this from? (HINT: You)
I don't want you to run yourself ragged all the time because I'm here in Columbia and I need money to pay my ultilies or get new tired for my bike.(I would like to point out that I do realize that me saying that isn't going to stop you from working the way you do)
I guess the point of that is to let you know that while it's unfortunate that it doesn't show so much, what you do is appreciated by me in a way that I don't have the words to describe.



I'll probably read over this in an hour or so and find a few of the mistakes I made, or the things that made no sense at all and do some fixing up and adding to.

(A little bit later)
I was reading over this and actually considered deleting everything I'd written and just putting in one paragraph...instead I'll just add the paragraph and leave the rest.

I do a lot of stupid things. Obviously I'm good at using up money. But I'd like you to know that after I do these stupid things, and in fact realize that they were stupid...its like a reflex that causes me to look back at it and think something like, "mom would be disappointed in me for...", or "why in the hell did i just do that. I wasn't raised that way" or something along these lines.

I think a huge number of people are not raised this way. They can't look back and wonder what caused them to do this because they don't realize that what they did was bad enough that they should be looking back at it.

And along the lines of disappointment...leisha's birthday balloons are a pretty good example of what disappointing you actually does to me. You didn't get me to cry because you looked mad...you had me crying because you were sincere when you said I disappointed you. (And for the record...when you told me the other week that that was one of the two times you've been disappointed in me recently I cringed...)

I was trying to think of what I would say if someone told me I could say one last thing to you. I wouldn't know what to say. I think so highly of you, the way you help others, and on and on.
But that's not what I would say.
(Being that I'm not a parent I don't know what would mean the most coming from my child)
So I'll just say that I can only hope that someday my kids feel about me the way that I feel about you.

Sorry I don't say it enough, but I love you mom
(and if dad would ever happen to read this you can let me know and I'll write to him some things I've thought about writing before)

Last thing (sorry...came to me in the shower)..many people "talk the talk". Few "walk the walk". You do both...and maybe that's why much of the words above are written.