My Mom

I think that I'm a pretty self-aware person; I can recognize things within myself and their origins, and I've spent a remarkable amount of time considering the reasons for why I am the way that I am and how it affects my life. All of that probably stems from acute feelings of insecurity from being alone a lot when I was growing up, and by alone I mean that I didn't have many friends and I was virtually incapable of making new ones even if I wanted to. Those who knew me in college can attest to the fact that I changed a great deal from freshman year to senior year, primarily in that I broke out of my shell of insecurity and actually tried to be a little more outgoing (which does wonders for your friendships, let me tell you).

More than anything, though, the key factor in shaping the person I am is my relationship with my mom. If you know me well, you know that my mom is the most important person in the world to me, but I don't think I even understood how important she was until about a year or two ago. I realized that many of the decisions I made in my life, and the idiosyncrasies that I have, are a result of my mom's influence. For those of you who advocate the nurture over nature theory of parenting, it probably comes as no surprise that my mom has shaped the person I am to such a great degree. That's not to say that my mom was intentionally trying to guide my life choices, aside from just wanting to raise a decent human being; I made decisions and I act in a way that's reminiscent of my mother because she is such an important part of my life.

For example, my interest in Japan is entirely because my mom is Japanese. I have never had any desire to look into the Armenian language or culture, and I don't even really think of myself as Armenian because I have always felt closer to my mom. That's not a reflection of how I feel about my dad's side of the family; I just have always felt closer to my mom, and so the desire to be closer to that side of myself took precedence. She never insisted that I take Japanese or even implied that it would be good for me to get in touch with my background, but I cannot recall a time when I did not want to learn Japanese. So in a sense, I got my Masters in Japanese because of my mom.

Other things are less obvious, such as the way I write my checks or the word choice I use when I talk. As a kid, I even tried to like the same foods that my mom liked, the most notable of which is mushrooms. However, I still hate mushrooms with an undying passion, so I don't copy my mother in everything. In fact, as I grow older, I become more aware of the person my mom truly is and why I don't want to be exactly like her, which in turn grants me new insights into my own character. There are aspects of myself that I believe arose in direct contrast to the way in which my mom behaves, but whether she raised me to think this way or I developed that thought process in reaction to her influence is kind of a moot point, I think.

Whatever the case, though, I would attribute any successes I have as a person to her. Seeing the sorts of relationships people I know have with their parents, it becomes more and more apparent to me that my mom has afforded me with a remarkable level of independence and freedom that a lot of parents don't grant their children. I am ridiculously lucky to have a parent like her; and if I ever change my mind about having kids, I hope that I've learned enough from my mom to be at least as good of a parent as she is.