Alright minions, I have something relatively embarrassing to share with you; my mother is my best friend. Now, I don’t mean that in a freaky, home-schooled, marrying my cousin sort of way. I mean it in that my mom is seriously my go-to person when I’m upset or confused or stressed out.

My mom is my rock. All of the way. I really don’t know what I would do without her and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather turn out like when I get older. I like to think of her as me, just older. I really can’t explain our relationship any better than saying she is my best friend. I can tell her anything about my life and get good advice on what I should do, without being judged by her.

I don’t know if that is weird or not, but even if it is, I don’t care. Because I’m happy with our relationship and that’s all that matters.

I look around and see countless teenagers that have the most horrible relationships with their parents and I’d take my too-close-at-times relationship with my mother over other people’s nonexistent ones any day.

But, anyway, the reason I was bringing this up is because she and I were having a night of shopping and fine dining on Saturday night and she brought up a very good point to me.

Everyone always feels like they’re busy.

My mom was telling me how when she first moved out of the house when she was in college and later when she got married to my father that she and my grandma didn’t have the best of relationships. She told me how she didn’t visit very often because she was “too busy” and that my grandma had a hard time adjusting to that.

This brought up the point that even though I feel like I’m constantly busy and that my schedule is jam-packed that pretty much everyone feels that way. Once you get older and start doing things with your life like work, and school, and friends, and blah blah blah, everyone gets stressed out and everyone feels like they don’t have any free-time.

And this is all before you get married or have kids and learn what being busy is really like.

So, perhaps without her even knowing it, my mom made me remember that no matter how busy I feel or how stressed out I get, that I need to make time for the things that matter, my family and my family-like friends.

Just because I have work and homework and school doesn’t mean that I can forget about the people and the things that really matter.

Because if I do, when I come back for them after leaving them behind they might not be there anymore. And I never want to be one of those middle-aged women with no family or friends because of only focusing on school or work. Now, don’t get me wrong, securing a good future by making school a top priority is still important. I just can’t forget the people that got me there.