the women who built us

it all starts with our mothers. they took a blueprint from God & handcrafted us with care. they swoon & sing for us when we are little, teach us words and good habits as we grow. they cry with us when we deal with heartbreak & scold us when we make decisions they don't approve of. these women guide us down the twisted, crazy road of life giving us all the tools we need to choose loving friends, find a trustworthy partner, and become good mothers. they nourish our soul with everything it needs to blossom into life on our own. then the cycle repeats itself, though even now, on my own, i still call my mom as if she's my doctor , the pediatrician, a counselor & a preacher.

i heard someone say something the other day & found it quite amusing - 

"no point in fighting it, one day, we inevitably all turn into our mothers."

some might cringe at the thought. its too late for me, i already am my mom in so many ways. creative, scatterbrained, driven & wise. a project is never completely finished before i am on to the next one + my drawers are never all shut at the same time. her qualities shining brightly out of me are comforting in a way though, i know that if she were to ever go away, id have such a huge piece of her with me, coming out in my life and looking back at me in the mirror.
i have soaked up so much of my mother in law too. she has engrained in me, a need for cleaner surfaces & has shown me patience in hard times with arrow, that I'm not quite sure i would have acquired on my own.

but what about the other women who carve their ways into our frames?

they say you are what you eat & i say, you are who you hang out with. during your lifetime you are going to meet a lot of people. some people stay, some people go. some people are blood & some are so close they ought to be. older, younger, same age; these people shape us. they attach their own characteristics, like blocks onto the original beautiful shape that God & our mothers built. we take on bits of their personalities, their silly inflection, their good habits & even some of their bad. we have our human surroundings to thank for who we are, who we will become & then finally, who our children become. in the end, we all end up like wonderful collages, made up of our sister's whimsical way of of looking at things, our girlfriend's crude & silly sense of humor + our mother's eyes. what an exciting blend.