"I Promise I'll Find You"

When I was a teenager and hating you for giving me a curfew, I never imagined one day I'd call you my best friend. We used to laugh at the girls who were best friends with their mothers. We always said it was weird and there are lines that can't be crossed. And although you'll always be my mother first, you truly are my best friend (after Big Nettie, of course)! I'll be 25 soon and I can finally say I know what makes a true friend. If I've learned nothing, if not everything, after being a wanderer these last 18 months, and I can honestly say it has taught me who truly sticks around. The family has no choice and only the truest of friends make the efforts. But the mother, she WILL find a way. If there were no Facebook, FaceTime, email or telephones I know you'd send a weekly postcard or telegraph to ensure I'm ok. I also realize you know how stubborn I am and how independent I'm trying to be so you give me the space to call you when I know you're dying to know how my day was.

Since I wrote dad a tearjerker blog for his birthday, I figure it is only fair to do the same for you (even though you cry at most anything).

The other day you commented on finding our book, "I Promise I'll Find You," when you were unpacking. I haven't thought about that book in years. And maybe even as a five-year-old at the book fair I knew I wasn't destined to stay in one place too long. I suppose 23 years was long enough. I'm so thankful for all the journeys I have taken in the past two years, and "I owe it all to you." 

People always call me brave and adventurous and maybe I am, but only to an extent. Friends and acquaintances my age always say, "I could never leave home like that." Many of them say they don't know how to live without their parents holding their hands. Well here's the bomb... neither do I. My strength comes from my family and the love and encouragement they send. But mostly, the strength I have comes from you and the strength you show in watching me grow up halfway around the world.

That's the funny thing about growing up isn't it? We never do. I'm 24, which is old enough to marry, have children, a career and so on, but even when I'm in my 50s, I'll still be growing up. I'll be where you are now and calling to ask my 80-something-year-old mama what the hell I'm supposed to do about my 20-something-year-old daughter who joined the peace corps and is living in Africa, or my son who wants to sail around the world on a fishing boat before going to college. Who knows what kind of adventures I'll inspire in my own children, but I know I will push them to live and go as you've done with me. And I know it's selfish, but I'm only doing this to you now so that when I have children who wander the world, you'll know what to tell me to do and what to say to comfort me. ;) 


I live an ocean and several countries away from the three most important people in my life, but I still have to ask you for help almost weekly. Now that I'm in China the calls and messages and need for help is less because there isn't much you can do since you've never lived here either. It's a whole other world here, but I still think to ask you for help first. And even when you don't know... you still know somehow.

I promise not a day goes by that I don't think about being home with you. Although I'm not in the living room with you and dad, I'm watching Cheers on Netflix by myself and I make it a point to listen to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack regularly.
This makes the second birthday of yours I've missed and I'm afraid it won't be the last one either. When people told me not to rush growing up I laughed. But damn, it really is hard.
I've said it a thousand times before, and I'm sure a thousand times more, but I truly don't know how people make it through life without the same set of parents I have.
You know that I love you. I say it every time we talk, and I mean it like hell. I just wish I could show you more. I wish we could spend more days together doing all the little things that mothers and daughters are supposed to do: manicures, shopping, cooking, gossiping, and the rest of it. I'm sorry that we now have to cram it into a few weeks or a month when I come back. I've always said I'll come home to start my life (at least somewhere in the South). Although I can't say when, I can say, "I Promise I'll Find You." I love you, mama, and this blog is the most I can do to show and tell you how much I love you on the one year anniversary of your 50th birthday.
"I'll love you forever, and I'll like you for always."

I saw this quote today and I thought it was appropriate.

"Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey."