Speedy Gonzalez
When I was younger every night my parents would tuck me into bed, give me a kiss on the head, and tell me that they loved me. When I hit my tween years, I was very much against even hugging my parents. When we went out to lunch or out in public, I would walk a couple of steps behind them in order to display that I wasn’t actually with them.
It all seems funny to me now, looking back on the days where I hated my parents. I used to get into heated arguments with my parents all the time about topics that seem absolutely meaningless now. A lot of people would say that how you feel about your parents has a lot to do with age and I agree with them.
I am seventeen now and while a lot of my friends can’t stand their parents, in these past few months I have really come to appreciate them. Next year I am going to college and leaving my family. This may sound a little sentimental but I want to cherish all the time I have with them now. I don’t think that there is an exact moment where I suddenly gained this appreciation for my parents; I believe that it came with time.
Now instead of the raging arguments that my mom and I used to get into about my mismatching socks where I would run into my room crying about how I was going to run away, I find myself actually confiding in my mom now.
I wouldn’t call my parents my friends but I think that they are the two people in the world that I could trust and tell anything to without facing the judgment that the rest of the world is so willing to dish out.
Once people grow up, everyone begins to learn that the world is not all peaches and cream. Not everyone is on your side and there are a lot of people that would much rather see you fall on your face than see you reach the stars. People talk behind your back, you don’t always get good grades, you have many bad days, and sometimes the people that you expect to always be there just aren’t there. Yet no matter what, through all that crap, I know that I can always turn to my parents.
While my parents may not tuck me into bed anymore and put little notes in my lunch, they do tell me that they love me and I know that I can count on them for anything.
