In honor of Mother's Day, I thought I would write an extremely accurate letter to my mother about our relationship and why I appreciate her so so so much. She's probably not going to like this because it's a little too real, but hey, the truth will set you free.

I wanna tell the whole world about a friend of mine / This little light of mine, I'm feelin' let it shine / I'm feelin' take y'all back to them better times/ I'm feelin' talk about my mama if y'all don't mind — Kanye West

You’re the best. I think you’re crazy, mean, and loud as hell, but those are my favorite qualities about you. To this day none of my decisions are solid until I’ve told you about them even if you don’t approve and because of that, I have major anxiety if I haven’t. Thanks for that too (insert eye roll here). I appreciate when you scare me to death by telling me about some disease I have never even heard of and when you exaggerate facts about me to make me seem way more awesome than I really am. You do this a lot. Be careful or people are gonna think I saved a bus full of children from Godzilla. I love that my friends love you. I tell them stories about you that I believe sound crazy, but they always think you’re cool. I don’t see it.

I love that you’re real and not fake nice and like a sugar plum fairy like moms on some creepy TV show. In fact, you’re really mean. Again my favorite thing about you. I love when I call you and it’s so apparent in your voice that you really don’t want to talk to me, but you do anyway. Well, most of the time. I love that when I want you to hug me you scream for me to get away. You blame me for being awake because I come home hyper in the middle of the night and when you tell me the next morning that I kept you up all night because my TV was too loud.

I love that you made fun of my first tattoo that said ‘Don’t Hesitate’ by constantly calling me and saying things like, “Don’t hesitate to clean the house.” That was really annoying. I know this sounds like a list of things I don’t like about you, but if I wrote something sappy I wouldn’t capture the relationship that I love that I have with you.

Nobody else understands my heart, the weird crap that I do, and the decisions I make like you do. God knows they usually aren’t the best. Thank you for teaching me not to cry in public because I never want to be that girl. Thanks for my sister. She’s annoying but my best fran for life. Thanks for not always having it together and buying me things. Material possessions do define love. You are strong, a force to be very scared of, and the best person I know.

Mostly, just thanks for being you because I don’t think I would have survived with any other type of mom. Happy Mother’s Day!