I am my parents child

Growing up I couldn't count how often I was told that I looked just like my mother.  I relished this fact, because for me she has been and always will be the most beautiful woman in my world.  There were times, rare as they were, that I was told I looked like my dad too.  I didn't mind this fact, he's a handsome devil, but I never saw it.  Looking in the mirror I saw my mother.  I remember seeing a picture of her when she was younger and asking if it was me, that's how much I looked like her.  This, along with so much of how I thought and acted that I was told was like my mom helped create a picture in my mind that I was so my mother's daughter.  Years later, coming into my own as a woman, in college and the following years, I came to realize how very much like my father I am.  I also realized later into my teens and my twenties, the parts of me that physically resemble my dad...like my face shape and my nose.  Make no mistake about it, I am my mother's twin, but I started to think about how wrong I was, how in truth I was so my father's daughter.

With this move I've realized, with no doubt, I am both my mother, and my father's daughter.  They somehow passed on the best (and sometimes the worst) of them to me .  And I am blessed to realize and appreciate that while they're still around.  I find it amazing that so much of what I do here are things I subconsciously learned from my parents.  I was never a cook, and I can't say I ever worried about cleaning as much as I should...but here, in my own place, I find myself acting just as I have seen my mother act for years.  From never leaving a dirty kitchen, to setting the oven timer every time I cook, to using bleach for everything, so much of her is in me.  And my dad...I see him when I jump up on the counter to screw in a lose nail, or when I obsessively check to make sure the doors are locked, or when I can't do anything without music playing.  Sure, there's always the other side, like the fact that I nearly always set off the smoke detectors like my mom, or how I am far from the friendliest morning person like my dad...but I appreciate it all.  I'm so thankful that even when I didn't realize it, they taught me so much just by being beautiful examples, not only of parents, but of human beings.