Mothers
Over the last two years of college, I’ve learned a lot from my mom. Even out of the house, she still gives great advice. Now, I don’t want to sound like only mothers can give great advice, I was just raised to a single parent, so I am just explaining from my point of view.
She taught me lessons indirectly which is great because what does every young person hate? Being lectured.
When I first got to college, I had a hard time adjusting to college life. I had been raised over seas for most of my life and could hardly remember living in the US. I was used to a different culture all together and suddenly found myself learning my own from scratch when I thought it was something I was “born” knowing. My mother had to explain to me how things worked in the US and how it was ok to have a hard time, a lot of diplomat children had a hard time adjusting to their own home country. Everyone at the embassies always told me it was going to be hard to adapt to American life but I didn’t understand until I got to college.
I had finally gotten the hang of things by sophomore year, when my mother was assigned to Iraq, I had to make another adjustment. Life with a parent in a war zone, and not just any parent, my sole parent. There was no second parent to go to for advice. I then had to wait hours to call my mother to ask her for advice or to tell her something was wrong. I then started to get worried when things made a turn for the worst in Iraq and diplomats started dying in high numbers. The attacks were getting closer and closer to where my mother lived. People screaming for cover and alarms blasting through the phone to hide from the bombs started becoming part of my phone conversations. I started to get a new perspective on life and started to see what was important.
Even when my mom was having a rough time at work, she still took the time to listen to what was going on through my life. Here I was worried sick about my mothers safety and she’s taking time out of her day to calm me down from roommate drama, but on the side saying “I might have to go, they’ve been attacking a lot today.”
I learned how important my mother is to me my sophomore year. What would happen to me if anything happened to her? I wasn’t raised around the rest of my family for 15 years, only during the summers. She was my closest connection to my family. She was the person who raised me for 15 years, all on her own. I had friends who just didn’t seem to understand what I was going through and weren’t supportive. Some how, the fact that my mother was in a war zone, where people around her were dying every day, was some how, not important. I learned who was important and who was part of my support group. My mom started to tell me to look around and see who was healthy in my life and cut out those who weren’t. I started to notice that family was more important than half the drama that was going on in my life and did my best to cut it out or get rid of what ever was causing it.
Then I had to notice that other peoples drama was taking over too much of my life. I started to notice most of my stress that was really causing me sleepless nights, weren’t even my problems! I couldn’t believe how that happened. I never was in drama in high school, (but then again, I hung out with mostly boys and they just wanted to skateboard into trash cans… don’t ask.) it started in college. I was taking on too much of my friends problems on a daily bases and it was actually making me sick. I was starting to get anxiety attacks over my friends issues, couldn’t sleep because friends were having a hard time in their lives and it carried over into my sleep pattern (possibly due to me being woken up at night). Every day, there seemed to be a new problem every single day, and I had run out of fuel. I had no answers left, I had no support life, I was drained. Then my mother asked, well, are they your problems? Are you missing important things to you reguarly? Is it effecting your other relationships? I had to say yes to everything finally and see that some relationships had just become toxic. I couldn’t go on living that way, in fear for my already decreasing health.
I say all of this to help future students. Just because your are out of the house, doesn’t mean that you say good bye to asking your parents for help. I’ve learned more from my mother the last two years, than I ever thought I did living at home for prob the last 10 of them. (Just, don’t tell her I said that.) Parents know you the best sometimes out of everyone on the planet. Their roles change in our lives and suddenly, they become this amazing bank of advice and knowlage that well, we can actually use! I also write this as a warning to pick good friends who are a great support group. Sometimes great friendships end in a toxic blast of an ending. I’m terribly sad that I had to cut some people out of my life, but honestly, I have been healthier, happier, and stress free ever since.
We only have one shot at this so called life, surround yourself with love, family, and great friends. Oh and, mom and dad might know a thing or two. 
