growing up, my mama was the life of the party.
like, i was more than mildly convinced that my friends were my friends largely because my mama was so cool and fun to be around.
she has this way of making everyone around her feel loved, cherished ... and like they matter a lot in this world.
doesn't everyone want to be surrounded by people like that?
anyway, my mama always went all out for everything.
birthdays = big deal.
graduations = huge deal.
American Idol season Finale = monumental deal.
really, though.
it was so fun growing up in the party house with a cool mom who loved me and my friends enough to cook up a storm and clean up after us grubby teenagers all the time.
i admit, i miss it
one of the most amazing parts to me about all of this is that my mom suffered from chronic migraines throughout my youth / in the middle of all this party-good-time'n fun.
the kind of migraines you take some serious med's for, including crazy shots, and can even be hospitalized for.
last week i experienced one of these crazy migraines.
now, i've had migraines since college-
but never one like this.
and it's left me thinking of my mama.
and so many of you.
who somehow roll up your sleeves and plow through the immense pain and nausea and pain...and still do all that's required of you as a mama or the woman of the house.
how do you do it?
i think of my mama making the hundredth secret-recipe-quesadilla for me and my friends after incessant begging on my part and i want to go whack the heck out of my selfish-teenage self, kick my friends out of the house, and give her a foot-rub, a scalp massage, and then go clean the house...twice, because i'm sure i didn't do it right the first time.
how could i have been so blind?
youth is a funny thing. so many things you don't know even though you think you know it all.
truth-be-told, migraines have been the least of my mama's health battles.
but no one would ever know.
she amazes me.
(and she'll probably kill me for writing all of this).
but i truly feel strengthened and inspired to plow through thinking of her.
i love these wonderful little family units that God sends us to earth in.
people who love us even when we're dumb.
people who we can learn so much from.
can't imagine life without any one of them.
{taken on the fourth in San Clemente}
