Mother's Day

I'm going to take a break from my recent diatribes and write from the heart today...  I am extremely thankful for my Mom, not only today, but every day.  There have been times that I Mom and I haven't seen eye to eye (that's probably an understatement) but I wouldn't change things for the world.  Well, I take that back, one of the things I would change is I would live closer to my Mom...

Growing up, I know that I was a pain in the butt as a teenager and when I wasn't sighing/rolling my eyes at everything, my favorite word (often when sighing and/or rolling my eyes) was "whatever."  It's a miracle that I wasn't locked somewhere by myself until I grew out of that stage.  One of the things that helped to shake me out of that stage was when Mom and I went to college together.  Not everyone gets to say that and I know a lot of people who have told me that sounds weird but I truly enjoyed it.

To help explain, I went to a branch campus of the University I attended and it happened to be in the town I grew up.  My parents let me stay at home through college (which I am very grateful for) since I was a full time student and I was working.  My Junior year, Mom decided she wanted to complete one of her lifelong goals of turning her Associate's Degree into a Bachelor's.  Because she and I had the same major (Elementary Education), she and I ended up taking many classes together.  Some of the teachers started to referring to us as "the twins" since we look alike.  I found it to be an amazing experience; we pushed one another and it brought us closer together.

She and I have also grown closer through us both belly dancing.  I am very fortunate to have a Mom who is a seamstress and she makes my dance costuming.  Many of my fellow dancers say that they want to be "adopted" by my Mom so they can get amazing costuming too (and what makes it funny is some of the dancers who say that are my Mom's age or older and then want to be "adopted" by her).  One of the things I love about Mom making my costumes is that I feel as if part of her is with me in every performance.  Yesterday we took place in a Shimmy Mob where belly dancers from around the world learned the same choreography; we were sent T-shirts that we could decorate, told to wear them with black pants and anything else we wanted - I debated making my own belt from an on-line pattern I found but decided instead that I wanted a piece of Mom with me so I wore a belt she just recently made for me.

Today I took the opportunity to re-watch one of my favorite movies (and namesake from which I chose to name my blog after), Gypsy.  In re-watching this movie, Mama Rose and Gypsy definitely had their differences but I think lots of that comes from how similar those two were (even though they would NEVER admit it); they were both very strong women, they just wanted someone to be proud of them and they wanted to have the opportunity to be their own person (Rose wanted to be in the spotlight and Gypsy wanted to be loved.  Mom and I both have sides of us that others see and then there is that side of us that we wish could come out on a more regular basis.

Mom, I know I don't say it often enough but I love and appreciate you more than I could ever say/write.  Thank you for all that you do that's above and beyond; you are my rock, my lighthouse, my Mom.  I love you!  ~ Gypsy