happy birthday mom.

Today is not my mom’s birthday.

So if you are thinking “omg I forgot today is Kim’s birthday and I haven’t told her happy birthday” well don’t worry because you didn’t forget. Her actual birthday is February 10^th. You still have a little while.

Today makes three years.
Three years of sobriety. 1,576,800 minutes of no alcohol or drugs. So today is her birthday of being sober. And while there is so much to tell, this post will be a short version of a very long story. One day I will share everything. But it will take a while to write and I’m not quite ready to share it yet. So for today, I am going to focus more on the positive and what God has taught me and my mom over the last three years.

I do want to share a small glimpse though of the last three years and how we got here.

My mom was a pharmacist. She was a single mom. But for the most part she was a good mom. She wasn’t a great cook (still is not lol) but she always fed my sister and I and we always had the best snacks. She provided for us. She bought us clothes and shoes and all kinds of stuff that we probably didn’t need. She let me paint my room orange. And then blue. And let me invite all of the second grade and their parents and brothers and sisters over to our house for my birthday one year. So, I’d say she was pretty cool.

But, her and I are complete opposites. We hardly look alike, and we have completely different personalities. I mean she has black hair, tan skin, and brown eyes. I have blonde hair, blue/green eyes, and skin as white as paper. We used to joke because my life long best looks more like her than I do. But for the most part we got along. Until I got to high school. It went down hill from there and never really got better. In fact, it got worse. So much worse.

Three years ago, I got a phone call from my mom stating that she was going to rehab. The girl who was salutatorian of her class, a leader in her church, and who taught kids dance had a mom who was going to rehab. Who would have thought? We weren’t on good terms to begin with and so this just pushed our relationship over the edge and frankly I didn’t really care what happened to her after that. I mean not really a phone call you want in the middle of getting ready to go to a staff appreciation dinner. I was lucky though and I happened to be working CentriKid that summer. I was surrounded by Godly people that prayed for me and supported me and they didn’t even know the whole situation. But they didn’t ask. They knew I was hurting, and they encouraged me in ways that I could never thank them enough for.

My mom went to rehab. But this wasn’t enough for me. She got out and found a job. Not a pharmacy job but a job. I still wasn’t convinced. I had pretty much built a wall and it wasn’t coming down. She began to change though. And God pushed me. A lot. He showed me that she was my mom and that she wasn’t perfect, but neither was I. I hadn’t always been the perfect daughter. I had made mistakes. I had disrespected her, and I didn’t always do what she asked. If she was willing to forgive me then I had to be willing to forgive her. God taught me so much about forgiveness. But it ultimately boiled down to the fact the He sent His son Jesus to die on the cross so that we can be forgiven of our sins. Not one sin or three sins but all of them. No matter how small or how large. And if God can forgive her and me then I have no excuse other than to show her the same love and forgiveness and hope that she could do the same for me. I finally was just like alright God, I get it. 

And so we did. We began to have actual conversations that didn’t end with us both storming out of the room. We began to go eat together. We began to just hang out. I began to really pray for my mom. She kept praying for me because I know that she never stopped even in the midst of all of the chaos. She began to text me her obnoxious I love you text three times a day and I began to actually respond. HAHA. Can anyone else relate?! Things became so much better and God was right there in the middle of it the entire time. I can truly say today that our relationship looks completely different than it did three years ago.

Now don’t get me wrong. Everything is not perfect. Forgiveness is not something that comes easy. I still wake up and everyday have to choose forgiveness just as she does for me and just as she has to choose to get up everyday and be sober.. Some days are great and some days I fail. Some days she drives me crazy and some days I drive her crazy. Especially when it is raining, and she has to go hunt down the local police to come unlock my car because I’m sick and have locked my keys in my car…again. We are still complete opposites. I am extremely stubborn and take jokes too far and she gets her feelings hurt to easy. It’s just who we are. Typical mom and daughter. But we have a new outlook on life and a new outlook on our relationship.

I hope that in time we will continue to grow and break down more walls. We still have a ways to go but we’ve come a long way.

I say all of this to let my mom know how proud I am of her and to tell her thank you. I am not always the best at showing her, but she has come so far in three years. She has overcome so much. She has gained her pharmacy license back. She has been approved to work 40 hours in a pharmacy. She has a job at a pharmacy. She has made so many new friends. She has inspired not only me but so many more. She has shown kindness to the least of these. She has kept moving forward even when she was at the lowest point in her life. She has ignored the haters and chosen to do better for herself. She has been sober for three years. And most importantly she has grown closer to God. I could not be prouder of her and her drive to do better every day. Thank you for not giving up on me and continuing to be a mom even when I didn’t want you to be.

If you or someone you know is in the same situation that my mom was in three years ago then I encourage you to find help. If you are in my situation then don’t give up. Keep doing something even if its as simple as saying a prayer for them. If you are on the outside looking in. Don’t judge. Ask about someone’s story before you assume. We all make mistakes and we all have struggles. Let’s encourage one another. Let’s pray for one another and lift each other up. Let’s celebrate each other’s accomplishments instead of failures. I promise it will make you feel better than talking bad about someone. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m preaching to myself.) We can do better, and we can be better. God’s forgiveness is for everyone. 

To you mom:

Happy birthday.

 I am so proud of you.

I love you.