Listen to your mother ... she could be right

It doesn't matter how old you are, your mother is going to worry about you. And now that I'm more than a two-hour drive from home, my mom is even more nervous about my well being. She did, however, come visit me in November and saw how well I'm doing, so I think it put her mind at ease ... just a little.

Even though they may fret and obsess, mothers have this intuition about their child's life, and they are usually right. For me, my mom is always right about the men in my life. She doesn't even have to meet them and she can tell if they're bad news. Five years ago I would ignore her words of wisdom because the guy dressed well or had amazing sideburns, but now I try to listen to her.

Don't get me wrong though. I make my own decisions, and I do plenty of things my mother doesn't understand. For instance, she still wants me to move back to the Midwest ... not happening. She did not support my decision to major in journalism in college, but I did anyways. And there's been men she didn't have a good feeling about, but I still went after them.

Look at me now ... I'm single. It obviously didn't last with any of these guys, but I don't regret any decisons I made (I learned a lot ... trust me). I just wish I would have tried to understand where my mother was coming from, instead of trying to prove her wrong.

I'm not saying you should stop having opinions and become your mother's puppet, I'm just saying it's okay to listen. Sometimes you have to stop trying to prove people wrong and take in another point of view. And, it might as well be your mother's and not that jealous friend of yours. 

But trust me, I still don't fully listen to all my mom's opinions. It's the sideburns ... they still get me every now and then. As for right now, let's just say she's being quite encouraging ... maybe I'm on the right track.