“When your mother asks, “Do you want a piece of advice?” it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.”– Erma Bombeck
Little girls grow up faster than the playground worms can swirls around in the soil. They outgrow their monkey bars quicker than they can climb them. Trade their pink Power Ranger dreams in for the idea of a career two sizes too big. Cut up their overalls into mini skirts and no longer waste time on creating a whimsical world for Barbie, but instead, a place for them to run wild in.
But there will come a time when daughters are no longer frustrated with their mothers over a strict midnight curfew—–instead, excited to come home early when they are visiting home so they can wake up in the morning and over a hot cup of lemon water, laugh with their mom about the absurd headline news. When they no longer stick their tongue out when told they cant have dessert unless they finish their salmon, and instead, find themselves miles away in a mini kitchen calling up their mom to find out how long to cook the chicken without making it too dry.
Mother’s Day, like Valentines Day, is just another excuse to in some way, some form, remind a person in your life how much you desperately love them.
And so mom, though I tell you every single day how much I completely adore you, I also need to tell you this:
You’re annoyingly always right.
And also, thank you.
Thank you for never laughing at me when I was 6-years-old and using my crayons to write poetry outside of the lines of coloring books. For not begging me to do something else with my life, when my answer to your question of what I want to be when I grow up was always “famous”, until it was “a writer”—for instead, helping me figure out ways to make that happen. For letting me run away to New York City, to crawl through the mazes of the subways and the cutthroat hearts of the people who make this city chaotically fascinating. For calling me once, twice, maybe even three times a day to tell me to never give up. To never take no for answer. To barge my way in and tell people that ‘I am Jennifer Sara Glantz’ and I am good enough.
Thank you for not only for going above the job descriptions of a typical mother—being first on the carpool line, getting those tough stains out of my favorite white tops, using the perfect proportion of peanut butter and jelly when making me lunch year after year. . .
…But, for being my personal stylist, my strength, my loyalist friend, and of course my Mother—because I know it’s not easy, yet somehow you make it look so flawless.
I love you, I love you, I absolutely positively love you.
