We are all superstars: Love who you are, no matter what

Please put on Lady Gaga, "Born This Way," and read the following.

My mother was instrumental in teaching me that I was perfect just the way I was born.  Before I entered kindergarten, she was a stay-at-home mom and took at least ten hours of her time a day to make sure that I was learning something (because you learn something from every situation), help me learn to like all foods (especially vegetables and only sweets on the weekends), dance and sing like no one is watching (she let me perform daily in front of our video camera so that even though my dad was working long hours he could watch me grow up), and how to love myself unconditionally because that was the only way she knew how to love me.  By the time 5 p.m. came around we were tired of our togetherness and I would start misbehaving and she would get frustrated but never yell.  After dinner, I was my dad's and we got to live the adventures of flying airplanes up the stairs and making an adventure of every evening even though that was the only time that I saw him.  My mom sacrificed a lot of her time, especially because she had so much to give the world as  a speech pathologist (she's really really good at teaching kids how to talk and teaching autistic kids how to embrace who they are, but more so, their parents), and she took the time to care for me, take me to every possibly practice because she loved me and I had way too much energy to just sit around the house.

I believed that I was awesome for just being who I was and that's what my mother fostered and encouraged everyday.  When it came time to go school shopping in junior high (probably because at the time we didn't have the money), she said brands did not matter and my dad reinforced that what mattered was who you were as a person on the inside and looks did not matter.  In the end, with every person you meet, what matters is that you impact them in a positive way so that they remember you as a good person who cares.

I guess I had the picture perfect childhood because both of my parents had dealt with hardships that I can only imagine.  My mother was raised by her grandparents because her mother became an alcoholic after she divorced my grandfather when my mom was 8.  My mother had to take care of her mother because she was too broken to take care of herself and back then, no one believed in therapy and that beer, cigarettes and time would heal everything and if you didn't talk about it, it would go away.  My grandmother died at 70 of breast and bone cancer.  She lived with cancer for over eight years.  She was a very strong, stubborn woman who wanted the best for all children and taught long enough to be my kindergarten gym teacher.  She loved sports.  She loved the Olympics.  She loved everything around her but had trouble because of the divorce, loving herself.

My dad on the other hand had a very loving household that was mixed with alcoholism and long hours just trying to survive the cold winters of Berlin.  He wanted to stop the cycle of his father as he had been one of the sole survivors from a sunken ship in World War II and his whole life he was angry because he was one who survived.  His mother was an amazing nurse who worked herself into the ground as a neonatal nurse.  When my dad was born, she was working the night shift, and she said she was now a patient.  My dad took pride in the fact that he was born at work.  He took pride that he had one brother and three sisters that all loved and cared about each other.  My dad's mother died in 1981 before my parents married at 55 of liver cancer.  My dad's father died in 1992 when I was in kindergarten after about seven or eight heart attacks and eventually the years of abusing his body took their toll.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad,  I love you, and congratulations on being married for thirty years and bringing me into the world.

Remember we are all superstars, we are all heroes and we all have the responsibility to love ourselves, our family and friends for exactly who they are because there is no other way to live.  If you do live another way, you probably complain and think life sucks, often.  Well, take responsibility for your actions and get over your sadness.  Once you get over your sadness on that long run or when you realize that someone else has gone through the same thing as you did and that today is a new day and sometime soon the sun will shine again.  The world is not that bad.  It's actually pretty freaking awesome.  Think about it.

If you are reading this right now, you have a roof over your head, you have heat, you have the internet and you can read.  As we head into the winter months, there are many others who may have to survive the winter rather than go skiing, tubing or sit in the warm house and drink hot chocolate while watching a good movie with friends and family.  Be appreciative for what you do have.  Say thank you to anyone who helps you.  Say I love you to your family and your friends.  You do not want to miss out on that opportunity because you will never know how much you miss them until they are gone.

So hold your family and friends close and love each other unconditionally and go out and make the world a better place because you are smiling.

Heidi