Day 11: My Parents

I wasn't always especially close to my parents. There were times that I was flat-out not remotely close to my parents, to be honest. My family went through a lot while I was in middle school and high school; my grandparents lived in the same town as us, and they both became sick. My mother was the primary day to day caretaker, and at one point she was living with my grandfather when he left the nursing home to begin hospice care at home. It's been a really long journey to get to a good spot with my parents, especially my mom, but I'm so glad we're here now.

At my graduation dinner in May 2006- hopefully we'll all get to party again in August 2012!

My parents are really great people. They have raised me the way I want to raise my kids- to believe in integrity, accountability, and honesty. They instilled in me that a work ethic is critical because the world doesn't just hand anything to you, and they made sure that I knew family was priority one before anything else. I'm so grateful that I've had the opportunity to get to know them better as I got older and to get a glimpse of them as real people- I think once your child is officially an adult, you might have the opportunity to let your guard down a little and aren't as scared to show your faults, and I think that's really nice to see from a kid's perspective. My parents have supported me in almost every decision I have ever made, even when I didn't realize they were behind me. I feel so incredibly blessed that I can talk to them multiple times a week (and I do) because I appreciate now more than ever before (and I'll probably appreciate it more once I have children myself) how much they've given to me and how much they've given up for me. They're really beautiful individuals, and I love them to pieces.