“You are just like your mom" are the words that have rang through my ears since the age of five. I never knew if it was just my eyes, which are identical to my mother's, or something else, but this was a never-ending statement I consistently heard from family, friends, strangers and practically anyone who came across my mom and I when we were together.
During high school, I was by no surprise always annoyed when I was told this because what sixteen year old girl wants to be told she looks like a 50-year-old?! Then, to ice the cake, people started telling me I acted like my mom too. Cool, now people thought I was just like the one person who annoyed me the most in high school. I mean who is BFFs with their mom in high school? A very select few.
Then I hit college…
The first month of college made “distance makes the heart grow fonder" the most relatable quote in my life. Of course I missed my friends, of course I missed my overweight Pomeranian, but I missed my mom. Watching her go to our favorite vacation spots, enjoy happy hour wine tastings, attend our summer barbeques at the pool, and drink coffee on our patio made me realize, I AM MY MOTHER! These were all of the things I loved to do, but how? This was my mother, someone 30 years older than me and certainly with different interests. Or so I thought.
The past thirteen years all began to make sense. It was not the Jane Owen that I knew as a teenager that everyone saw me to be similar as. I pictured the fights we had and the very rare moments where she would get fed up and yell at me, but everyone else saw the outgoing, loving, social, fabulous woman that my mom truly is, and they thought I was just like her. What a compliment! I realized she raised me as a mother, not a best friend and that was because she knew that if she raised me right, I would soon acquire all of her wonderful traits and we would be friends in the end.
Now that I have realized all of my great qualities came from my mother, I can't thank her enough! And back to those identical blue eyes, if all my looks follow my mom's, I'll be one great looking 50 year old. I mean she looks identical to when she was 20.
