Thank you to my Mother

• For allowing me to change my mind and not apologize for it.
• For supporting and indulging my fantasies of a future career in all of the following: architecture, art, performance, and motherhood. And I don't mean just pick one. It was going to be all of those things at the same time. This was all before the age of 8. (I added writing later)
• For teaching me how to live independently, both emotionally and physically. This includes making me honor every teenage monetary debt I had to my older, more responsible brother.
• For teaching me how I should be respected by a man and how to respect a man (in that order).
• For insisting on good nutrition and fitness habits.
• For not accepting a grumpy pout or frown when she woke me up in the morning.
• For rearing me in a household where women and men were different, but equal.