What has had the biggest influence on your life?

People come and go in my life. But someone once said to me when I was 10, “An oak tree is just a nut that held its ground.”

I thought about all the crap a nut has to go through – squirrels, being washed away, snow, wind, storms, lightening… And thought it was the coolest saying ever.

And so I stick all the bad times out, because “this too shall pass”.

My son. Being a parent, and especially a single parent, puts a ton of responsibility on one’s shoulders. I come from a highly dysfunctional childhood, and his father’s childhood was literally a nightmare. I was determined not to continue that legacy. In choosing to be an involved parent, and teaching my son how to make discerning decisions and to love and respect himself, I have in essence, re-parented myself and taught those same lessons to me. I once thought I was a hopeless case, but now I can honestly say that I am happy and beautiful, and I am proud of the young man my son has become.