The most important day of my life is actually not a day I remember, probably because once you have kids most of your memory is temporarily damaged. It was a day sometime in my 30s that came and went like any other day, but was important because it was when I decided that who I am is enough. Enough for me and for everyone else. Enough to make me happy; enough to allow me to live with abandon. After spending my childhood and adult life trying to be like someone else, I finally stopped trying, and started living for myself.

I grew up in the 70s with a strict Italian father and rather permissive Polish mother. My parents were and still are as opposite in personality as two people could be; my father had a lightning-quick temper and we tended to walk on eggshells when he was around although with age he has calmed down). My mother was and still is calm, logical, empathetic, helpful. Mother-like. My father adored my mother and put her on a pedestal. He made sure we remembered her birthday, helped her around the house, appreciated her. In my memory she is the perfect mother. She is the person I have tried all my life to be.

Coming from a middle-class family, my parents sacrificed to send my brother and me to Catholic high school. Both my parents worked fulltime to pay the bills. We didn't have as many things or participate in as many activities as kids do today, but I don't think we noticed. At least I don't remember complaining very much. I was never a sporty girl, so I spent my spare time reading. We had chores, but I waited until the very last minute to get them done, unlike my mother who really likes cleaning and especially ironing. When I went away to college I tried to replicate the things I'd seen my mom do, such as serious cleaning or chore-completing. But, it's my nature to want to do the fun stuff first and leave the crap for later, or better yet for someone else. But there are certain things that have to get done if you want to be able to find things when you need them, so I really tried to like it all. I graduated from college, moved home, got a job, met a guy, got my Master's degree, moved in with the guy, got engaged, got married. All the while trying to hold my mom's way of doing things as the ideal. And failing. And then feeling guilty for failing. All of which took an enormous amount of energy.

Then came the baby. There is nothing in the world that can make you eat your words like a baby. Babies are the great equalizers. Even the super-freaky clean, organized people get thrown when they have a baby. Right? Not my mom. She just has a personality that makes you believe she can do anything, handle anything, complete anything, all with a sense of calm and grace. It was at no other time in my life that I envied these traits so much. I felt like I was drowning. In work, in household chores, in scheduling playtime and schooltime for my son. Everything. And when procrastination rears its head at a time like that, it's not pretty. And then came that old familiar feeling. My girlfriend still reminds me how I kept saying in a whiny, lilting, empty uterus way, "I want a baby." And so baby number two was initiated. And now I had a choice. Continue down the road I'd been on for as long as I could remember, or do something else. So, sometime into my second child's pregnancy, crazy with hormones (or maybe just crazy), I decided I was enough. I was no longer going to subjugate my wants or needs, except to my kids, within reason. I was going to be honest (sometimes brutally), with the people I cared about, and forget the rest. I decided that time is really flying and I haven't done a lot of the things on my LIFE LIST OF THINGS TO DO, so I needed to make the time. And most important, I decided that I won't spend my life with people I don't like, that suck the energy from me, or that aren't there for me. I never really had a problem saying NO to people, but I did feel guilty about it. Gone.

Today I realize that in spite of all my efforts all those years, trying to be like my mother, I am my father's child. It's in my nature to be gregarious, loud, and stubborn just like him. But now I realize that I am a combination of both of them, the good and the bad (although I truly don't see any bad traits in my mother-sorry Dad!). They never set out to make me a copy of my mother; I somehow took that role on all by myself. But I believe that the roads we travel lead us to where we are meant to be. And I'm loving it right now.

Christine Drumm is a stay-at-home mom who lives in a suburb of Chicago with her husband and two kids who keep her on her toes. She can be reached at drumm260@comcast.net