I think growing up is taking responsibility on, challenge by challenge, but I think what makes being grown up is realizing you pick that level of sacrifice over the norm. To push, to take head on the world at large. Your never fully grown its an action to keep acting in this manner. Just like love, kids, and jobs it’s a daily choice not a one-time gig. I heard a song that hit me deep and reminded me of a time long ago. With just a couple chords I was transported back to six year old me, and singing along with my mom. Its weird getting hit with a wave of emotions in the middle of a mundane task. It almost takes your breathe away a little. The joyful memories of excitement and taking for granted everything around you. Its special being the first born, your image of your parents is when they are new to this thing called child rearing. Its less how awesome they are at it and more what grit and resolve they had that speaks volumes to me as an adult. I remember my mom in her twenties, I can look back and see sacrifices, trials, and compassion she shared with me. It’s a testament to her drive, and focus. When your younger, you struggle more, you have less money, and its hard to be patient. So when a song like Promises in the dark by Pat Benatar come on the radio its like a time machine to 1989. Except now I’m older than she was and it just hits me what a badass she was in her 20s and still is. She instilled a lot of things in me with just her reactions and hard work. I expect to give my kids as much as she gave me in safety, security, and love that I can. To me her actions are a whisper, so much more powerful than a roar. What? You say a roar is louder. No! a roar is noise, and a whisper you lean in for. You make the biggest moves for your children in a whisper. Anyone can claim something, that’s a roar, but the whisper is the action. When I say I love you to my kids it isn’t the word that matters it’s the time, sacrifice that defines that word for them. I have a blended family three kids from my previous marriage, two from my partners. We struggle all the time with our boundaries with our ex’s on our kids lives. When they were younger the stresses were huge. As they grow their relationship with their other parents is more on them. But one of the biggest reasons I don’t stress so much is times taught me that the whisper matters to them, just like the whisper mattered to me as a kid. We’ve worked hard to try not to splash disagreements with their other parent on them. We cant stop our ex’s from trash talking about us to the kids, and the older I get the more I get why it doesn’t matter. Negativity has a way of being its own fulfilled description of someone’s role. Just like being a step parent doesn’t make you less of a parent, that description for your step kids is up to you. Life is messy, and thank you mom being an absolutely amazing parent, your investment, and sacrifice help me all the time. I’m grateful for all you did, and continue to do for my kids by teaching me to be a parent willing to learn. Also for all those drives listening to all your cassettes singing along. Thanks for answering all my questions about the slang in half of those songs. Seriously tweeter and the monkey man by the Traveling Willburys is a crazy song if you take the lyrics at face value as a kid.