So often, I find myself referring to my childhood to explain the person I am today. But, does our childhood really affect us for that many years, that at age 37 I can still say I act a certain way because that is how I grew up?

For example, in northern Wisconsin, we just didn’t drive fast. There was either snow on the ground or deer in the road.  Never was there a safe hour of the day or month of the year to hit the gas.

My husband, on the other hand, grew up in north Florida, where he and his buddies new nothing but fast. The long, flat, straight roads of Escambia County were a daily race track for them and their vehicles.

Now mix slow and fast and you do not get the speed limit. Throughout our marriage, I have had to try to get more comfortable with driving faster. That doesn’t mean my husband drives reckless, just faster than what I am used to.

He has had to slow it down some to help me feel safe and be able to enjoy our trips.

Is what my husband doing wrong? No.  He drives safe.  I was just used to slower speeds – all the time.  My parents weren’t wrong to drive that way, it was necessary for where we lived.

I could say, “Well, that is how I grew up!” But that was a long time ago. I have actually been grown up longer than I was little. So, isn’t it possible that maybe I can change my thought processes as an adult that would not be based on the circumstances of my childhood?

Yet, I find myself referring to my youth often in the way I think and do things. Aren’t we supposed to leave those childish ways behind? Aren’t we supposed to think like an adult now, act like an adult now, reason like an adult now?

When you, and I for that matter, find ourselves justifying our behavior with our past, pause for a moment and decide whether or not that thought is based off of childhood ways or is based off of reality and current circumstances as seen through your eyes, today.

It is important to not blame our choices and responses we have today on things that happened in our past.  But, it is great to give credit to the wonderful things our parents taught us and we are able to hold on to and use in our life as adults.

So many of my good traits come from my mother.  She taught me so many wonderful skills that I have needed my entire life but most of all she taught me about love.  

Now, Grami gets to pass many of those skills on to her grandchildren.

These are things that Hanna will always be proud to have learned.