I am my mother's daughter

I remember coming to my mother when I first wanted to start wearing make-up. I couldn't have been any older than twelve, maybe thirteen (the awkward tween years) A few of the other girls had already starting wearing hideous eye shadows and way too much mascara. I can remember the big craze was putting glitter around your eyes. (oh growing up in the 90's was so painful)

I nervously came to my mother and asked her if she could teach me how to apply makeup. Her reply: "you're too young, you don't need makeup. But when you're old enough the one thing that you always need is red lipstick." At the moment she sucked... it just wasn't fair.

Since then I've obviously figured out the how to's on applying my own makeup and I got over my mom being a big meany. I've also resisted my mother's advice of insisting on wearing red lipstick everywhere you go. I can't even count the different shades of red's in my mothers vanity. There seems to be a red for every occasion. I just sort of always felt it was too bold. I'm more of a gloss girl.

For the past year I've found myself spending a lot more time with my mother, my grandmother, and my mother's older sister. Because both my aunt and my mom are teachers they've been on summer vacation and had a lot more time to hang around the house. This has given me A LOT of time to spend with them, and I mean.. A LOT.

Before moving away to school I always loved my mom the way every daughter loves their mother: You appreciate her and the things she does for you, after all this is the woman you carried you for 9 months. She taught you how to braid your hair and bought your first bra.

The women who raise you have gotten you through all of the uncomfortable and awkward times that define being a woman.

After going away to school and growing I've come home with a different kind of appreciation. My mother is no longer just a woman who cooked us dinner, my aunt is no longer the goofy aunt who visits every weekend and drives my father crazy, my grandmother is no longer the meek soft spoken lady.

What I've come to realize and witness is that these women are all strong and independent in their own way. For the past 22 years they have been teaching and instilling the same values in me that make them so amazing. Most of the time it was with much teenage angst and under my consciousness of knowing that by simply being around them I am slowly but surely picking up their quarks. More and more I find myself having more in common. These women are no longer the women who simply raised me but they are now my friends.

Just a few years ago this would be a very annoying thing to realize. I always used to think that they drove me crazy. And most days I really did believe that they WERE crazy.

but lately I just find myself wearing a lot more shades of red lipstick. And I love it.

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