To those who know you more than you know yourself

I was young(ish) and running. I was fighting against my instincts and my biology and trying to get into running shape.

Later, I remember talking to my Mom over the phone and her saying "you sound wheezy".

I was pissed.

She didn't know who I was anymore.

I was a college educated grad student. I was a young man with dreams bigger than our small town and our family.

She couldn't know what was happening inside me half a continent away, over a phone call check-in.

But, of course she did.

She is my Mom.

Also, her understanding is a product of second-order observation. I discovered this idea later in grad school and suddenly the world made more sense. We can't know ourselves as well as those who really know us because we only see the world in front of us.

Moms see more. They see us, and the people we interact with and the results of our interactions. We only see part of that story. We experience first-order observations. Second-order observations of ourselves are the things of Moms and Dads and friends.

It's incredibly annoying.

It's also the best gift they can give you.

When your Mom, or wife, or partner or best friend says "You seem tired, or stressed or sick or happy....." go ahead and believe them. They see you in a way you don't see yourself.

The inverse is also true if you open your eyes and your mind.  A lot of us Dads don't do that. But Moms almost universally do. Their presence is intoxicated by the reality of their children. They are bracketed by the insistence of their partner's life.

They are the centre of it all. They are an eternal return for each of us.

It may sound a little Freudian, but Moms are replaced by our partners. It's not in a creepy way though. They are simply the people who see us for who we really are. They see us, they see the world as it changes through us. We are often blind to much of this.

Our Moms and partners and closest friends are the corrective lenses for our lives. We only get to decide if we want to listen to what they see.

My Mom was right during that phone call, as my partner is so many times now........although I almost always default to no and claim something else.

In short, thank you Mom. And Happy Mother's Day.

You were almost always right, and someday I'll remember that too.