Every year, around the time of major holidays, my paternal side of the family exchanges the kind of newsy emails that you get in Christmas cards, just to keep everybody in the loop. These are usually initiated by my Aunt Judy, who is the youngest and most sentimental of my dad's siblings. She likes to keep us all talking together, because without her, we would probably not tend to keep in touch. Well, this year, in our post-Thanksgiving email, Judy had some very interesting news for us: she and Uncle Jon are moving. To Belize!

Here's how it happened, I gather from what she told us: Aunt Judy has been afraid for a while that she will lose her librarian job. She and Uncle Jon recently started their own screen-printing business. And Judy and Jon recently visited Belize and fell in love with it. I guess with all of this combined, and with their children, my cousins Dane and Brynn, getting older, they decided to just go for it and pursue this dream.

And I am so proud of them.

It probably sounds crazy to a lot of people, to pick up and move to your favorite vacation destination, to leave your teenaged, adult kids on their own in the States, as they have no interest in going with their parents. But every single one of us has a dream like this. Mine is to pick up and move somewhere not chosen by proximity to family but by a kinship with the place: Massachusetts, Olympia, New Orleans, Vancouver. James's is to tour the world with his band. The only difference is that most people think it's crazy to pursue this kind of dream, but Judy and Jon don't. I love them for that. They've given me hope that one day I might throw all my chips in and pursue my own dreams despite great odds.

My aunt Judy has long been an inspiration to me but has become even more of one since I found out I was going to be a mother. My own mother had a very rigid, very cold style of parenting. I was to do exactly as she said, to get her permission for everything I wore, ate, thought, or else risk her wrath. I have this vivid memory of dyeing my hair in 9th grade at my friend Alana's house, dyeing it literally one subtle, reddish shade from my natural hair color. My mother didn't even notice until days later, after I had confessed what I'd done in a fit of guilt. Then she mocked me, said my hair was purple, that I looked ridiculous. And she hadn't even noticed.

My relationship with my mother has always been one long struggle: my mother struggling to make me into the daughter she had always imagined having, me struggling to just be myself. My mother sees herself as having failed in her job as a parent because I never did turn into that girl she wanted me to be. It doesn't matter that I think I'm pretty damn awesome, that I am charitable and successful in what I do, that I try to be kind and caring, that I have friends and a husband that love me. She has failed, because I am not her. She resents me for being the person I actually am, and even 30 years into this experiment, hasn't quite given up hope that if she just squeezes hard enough, one day I'll start being the daughter she actually wanted. She really believes that I will be happier and a genuinely better person if, like her, I'd start wearing low-heeled Aigner pumps with every outfit and counting the Weight Watchers points in everything. No more punk rock! No more gumbo! No more fun!

No thanks. I'll pass.

Aunt Judy's relationship with her own daughter is so relaxed, easy, and affectionate, by comparison. My 17-year-old cousin Brynn dyes her hair another crazy color every week, and that's OK, because it doesn't actually hurt anybody and because Brynn wants to. Right now it's shaved on the sides, with dreadlocks in between. It might not be her best look, in my or even her mother's opinion, but it suits her, allows her to express herself, and makes her happy. Brynn also has a nose piercing that she gave herself a year or two ago. Aunt Judy was upset when she found out about it...because she was afraid Brynn could have injured herself not having it done by a professional. She didn't care that Brynn had chosen a way to express herself that she might not have chosen for her.

Aunt Judy has always listened to Brynn, treated her as a person, allowed her to choose her own path, supported the person she is rather than some idealized person Judy might want her daughter to be. And I hope to do the same thing with my daughter. I hope to nurture the person she is rather than steer her to become the person I want her to be. I hope to have the fortitude to guide her, without pushing. To let her raise herself, to a certain extent--at least to decide the course of her own life. I'll be there to help her find out what that is, and to support her in it. But I want her to be free to be herself, and if I didn't have Aunt Judy's shining example in my life, I might have never learned how to do that.

I don't talk to my aunt nearly enough, but next time I do, this is what I think I'll say: I love you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting Brynn be Brynn. And thank you for showing me how to be a mother, so that I don't have to be MY mother.