Walking the beach today at Fort Flagler, I took a candid photo of myself. I am not big on taking many pictures of myself because the image on the camera is not the one I keep in my head. In the picture I downloaded this evening, I realized that except for the hair color, I look exactly like my mother. It is not want I want to see. Nothing was wrong with my mother, nothing at all. I am looking at a 56 year old woman in the picture anyway so perfection belongs not in my camera image but perhaps in Hollywood where Sharon Stone looks like a 30 year old screen goddess. I just feel myself melding into my mom, losing my identity as the more I resemble her. I know I am not her. So much is different about me, my life and my personality but I am wrestling with this issue. I admired my mother but never thought I would look like her. What a silly self centered thing to say! I can hear those words from her now.

I will not post the picture. It is hard not to just delete the dang thing. It was fun at the beach on a walk. Relaxing, centering. I am going to be doing some more soul searching on this mother issue. I wonder if my sons will think along these lines although I doubt it. I really do doubt it.