Dear Mom, I am more of you than I thought

Dear Mom,

It almost seems kind of silly writing something to you when I actively talk to you daily. You are my best friend, my supporter of life and are the reason I am alive and well today. I tell you everything and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Often things that are defined under the TMI range, but you get it all. You share your life lessons with me, I know your stories as if I lived them, and half the time I know what story you are going to pull out when I tell you about the situation I am in. But my whole life I have loved you but struggled to find an ounce of myself in you.

You are so strong, a MacGyver, hence why I have called you Tinker Belle my whole life. You make nothing look easy but make everything look possible. You are wildly artistic, have the steadiest hand I have ever seen, and have a knack to create something out of very little. You are thrifty, which I defiantly got from you, athletic, which I definitely did not get from you and always late. Yes, I know that's not a positive, but it's true, we even have a name for it, Shes always on Pam track.

Everything you embody, never made sense to me. You disregard structure, money has no realistic presence in your life, you love sports and relate as an athlete. You are so sure of yourself and your actions, including walking across a few tree trunks in dangerous situations a few too many times for my taste. You are adventurous and have an itch to travel. You love projects, but never have a reason to finish them, you see the possibility in everything, and every problem is a challenge to solve. You are a hermit of sorts, where you despise parties and events and making a name for yourself has never been your force in this world. You have always seemed like the opposite of me.

For reference, I demand structure to feel comfortable. I was raised with sports in my hands, but never had a knack of playing with them. My instincts will never be like you when coming to trusting my strengths. Money and the product of money and time does not elude me like it does you. I need it to feel safe, you need it to do what you dream. I desire responsibilities and being accountable, you dread deadlines. I dreamt of being a part of events my whole life, you never understood that, but helped me always create my birthday visions. You created the best childhood for me, even though I gave you the biggest learning curve. But throughout my life, I never felt like I could relate to you. That my brother had all your traits that made sense to you, he was the mini you and I envied that.

But here we are age 25 and I am seeing myself from a whole new perspective. A perspective where I am realizing I am a lot more like you than I had thought. I just had to work through the kinks of what I thought was right, to find what has always been a part of me, you!

I dreamt of never being defined by my hometown, that the last name I was raised around was always there, but never my defining nature. I dreamt of moving to a city and working and climbing the ladder at a hotel or company. I dreamt of something more. And I still do, but my outlook has changed. I still demand financial security, that will probably never change, but like you I don't believe I can be defined in one space. Like you, I dream to go and be everywhere. Like you, I have learned that working for someone else, they will never see the same vision as me. I am you at my age, reincarnated with my own quirks. All the little things that matter so much growing up that made me feel so different from you, were just traits, things at best. Because truly, I am more like you than anyone else.

I put immense pressure on myself to not fall into mediocrity, I feel guilty when I don't believe I am meeting my potential, I dream! My heart doesn't have a zip code and right now my life doesn't have a dependency on where I could go and with who. I am completely myself, intertwined with traits of you, and honestly, I find comfort in that. I find comfort that though I feel out of control with no security of how I have always defined success. I am seeing success in a whole new light, a light you have always shown me, but I was never ready to see. You in some ways have been my guiding light, always there, to show me a way and letting me take the path that I choose.

You told me to do what you love always and that you would support me whatever that may be. You said you took the three most important things to you and created your dream and now here I am following the same steps. Your three things were sports, travel and art, that's how Nonstop was born. Here I am redefining everything I know regarding working, and I fall back on the three things I love to guide my way, Travel, Art and Weddings. I am a different person, following the same concept as you Mom. You never forced me to do this, you never told me there was a wrong way, you always showed me there was another way.

I am who I am becoming because of you, I am walking in your shoes, as me around the same age, different city, different craft, same dream. I am so much more of you than I ever thought, and I am so proud to have that and to say it. I love you mom for always being there, letting me figure it out without you forcing your ways on me. I am so proud while writing this, knowing I am on the same journey as you once were, making my own strides, but seeing your footprints in the sand in front of me.

I love you!

Love,

Rilee