the life I should have had

I find myself, in the heavier moments of parenthood, wondering about the life I sometimes think I should have had. When I was younger, in college and even earlier, in high school, I thought about the future that awaited and never once in all that time did I think I wouls be a single mother with two kids, living at her moms house at 36. I don't dislike the life I have now, but this really is never where I thought I would be at this point in time. I find me letting my mind wander to what it would be like to have the life I thought I would have if things has turned out the way I thought it should have. What if there was a partner beside me? What if I wasn't alone on this journey? What if my boys had a dad? Who would I be? What would I be? Would that other person be there to back me up? Would he be there to fight with? I know, from looking around at the wreckage of some peoples lives that it could be so much worse. I could be shackled to someone who was abusive, cruel, unavailable, or just plain uninterested in being a dad. Things would be so different. But maybe not all for the better. Maybe I wouldn't have found my inner strong person. Maybe I would not have learned to listen to and trust my own judgement when it comes to raising kids. I have a nasy habit of letting other peoples wants and needs overhsadow my own. I lean in the direction of giving more validity to someone elses point over my own. Since I am on my own own this journey, there is no one else to get any other odeas from, so I have to find the answers my self, one way or the other. I have to figure out what questions to ask and how to find the answers I need. I have had to learn to be independant and how to maintain discipline in my home. I doubt myself every day that I have any clue what I'm doing, but I'm so much better at this than I was five years ago. If I were with someone else, maybe I would not be 11 weeks away form having my Masters degree. Maybe this is the life I was supposoed to have even if it wasn't the one I wanted. I can honestly say sometimes I look around and wonder how exactly I got where I am. I truly never thought this fate was in my cards. But as in poker you can only deal with the cards you have been dealt. Wishing for another hand will not get you where you want to be. I love my kids more than I ever thought it was possible to love another person, and I do not regret ain anyway rasing them. I think maybe I'm right where I'm supposed to be. How's that old saying go? "You wanna hear God laugh? Tell him your plans." "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." I think these fit here. Some days I swear I can hear giggles coming from heaven.

the destiny of children

It's an interesting thing about kids. In my darker moments, I have, in the past, questioned the motives of God in regards to giving me a child with so many problems. Not that I don't love him, cause God knows I am closer to him than any other human being on Earth. But there have been moments when I have questioned the wisdom of the higher power in choosing to send this child on this particualr journey. Everything is much harder for him than it is for most children. He was to work harder in school, to make friends, to process negative emotions and to just cut a path through his existance. Everything comes so easily to his brother. This child, my child even has trouble naviagting home sometimes, wanting more and more of my attention, testing every boundary ever placed before him. He is frequently difiant and angry, making me wonder whats going on inside of him. I have asked, at times in the past, why this child was given to me. Don't get me wrong, I know how blessed I am to have children in the first place. Too many people want them but are unable, or have their kids yanked prematurely out of their lives by the impetuous hand of fate. I do aknowledge my blessings for what they are and I know just how quickly things can change. But that being said, what is the wisdom of giving a child that requires the therapist, the psychiatrist, the special ed, the school counsellor to me? Who decided I was up to this personal challenge? Why were the odds so seriously stacked against him from the very beginning, with the life he was given, the father he was given, the family he was given. Even the love of both parents was denied him in this exisitance. That makes me very sad for him. His is an experience I cannot fully undestand as I was lucky enough to have both parents together for my entire childhood. Why was he granted a father that was able to so easily cast him aside when a new model arrived, treated his oldest child like the favorite child? I mourn sometimes, for what he should have had, but never will. And, really where I'm going with this is why was this child given to me? I've never had ADD, I can't really know how his mind works. And yet, he is SO loving, and SO considerate. Maybe these gifts were meant to balance out the shortcomings he was handed with them. If you put him in a room with people smaller thna him, he has the patience I wish I had. How can this be the same child that can be so angry is things aren't just they way he needs them to be?

I look at the last 9 years with this child, and I look at what I have learned from him. I have learned patience. I have learned to be quiet when I am angry, I have learned to be flexible. I have leanred to slow down, and how to find a way to keep trying when I want to stop. I have learned how to ask questions to those around me and how to use the system to get what he needs. I have learned to listen. I have learned how to communicate. Still yet there is more to be learned. Maybe the powers that be gave exactly the right child to exactly the right person, in that we both had a lot to take from each other. I don't know if someone else would be able to find the stores of pateince I have had to with him, or learn to think creatively when it comes to methods of helping him learn. Maybe it was done exactly right after all.

I still wonder if I'm up for this, and there are days I pray for a peaceful day where the fighting is less. But I think, maybe just maybe the people in charge might know what they're doing. I can only hope I'm doing it right. I worry about his fututre, he has so many challenges to overcome. I only hope, I only pray I know what I'm doing.  I want so much for him, I see so much in him that could be amazing. I need to remember to stop and remember he is amazing to me already.

"To love another person is to see the face of God..."

who am I?

So I look at my life, as it stands right now, and I find myself wondering who I am. I am the mother of a two children, one of which in on his own journey through a form of mental illness. I am a daughter who cares for her mothers daily needs, including cleaning the house, the yard, the kids and everything that's included there in. I buy the food, clean the house, feed the family, maintain the household, and work full time while going to grad school. I am an almost graduated Masters student who has managed to keep a B average this far. I am single mom, who is rasing two boys without any help from their dad. He chooses not to be involved since he had a new family with his current girlfriend. If it didn't bother Patrick so much, it wouldn't bother me, but Patrick wants a dad, and right now, as far as he is concerned he doesn't have one. I am single right now by choice, as I don't have time to get involved right now with anyone else. I simply have no desire to give anything to anyone else. There is nothing else to give. I have friends, and I hope I'm as good a friend to them as they have been to me. I try to be anyway. I am 36, and sometimes it feels like time is the enemy, the older it gets the faster it slips by me, every day falling away a little faster than the one before it. Somedays, I feel like I'm still 22, and not entirely sure how I ended up where I am. I look around me, and wonder How did this happen? How did I get here? I am a mom, who loves her kids more than anything else in the entire world. They are the best thing I have ever done, and I know how lucky I am to have them, healthy and whole. Patrick especially, he has his issues, but we're working on them. Therapy is working its magic, and hes in special ed in school, something I've been working for since September. So, with all of this, I still look around and wonder who is the person who lives just under the surface of all of this? That reamins to be seen.

I haven't posted in a really long time, because the whole moving in the house event actually came across as sort of anti climactic, and with all the chaos of the holidays, I just sort of misplaced myself for awhile. I'm still looking for me, I am going to update the whole blog soon because the original purpose of it has been completed, and now I have to define the new journey I might be on. I really worried that after the house was complete I woulds have nothing left to say, that perhaps people would not find me interesting anymore. A few updates to get out of the way: Pat is sleeping in his own room again ans that's great for all of us. I know the world has put this event behind them, and I think I'm getting there too. I'm in a more solid place than I was 6 months ago that's for sure. I still see changes that need to be made within myself, and perhaps that's where I'll go from here.

thinking

"You make life happen, you do not wait for it to happen." In the past year or so, life has been happening to me. not the just the fire but the job the child support the whole nine years. I have been letting life happen to me, over and over again, I have let guys call the shits and let people I dislike control my actions throughout the weeks and months, some of this was unavoidable and the price paid for life, like the dealings with the fire. But some was just passivity. Let me share with you something that happened to me today. I was sitting in heavy traffic today, and waiting my turn at a very slow light. Someone in the lane going the other direction honked and preceded to yell at me to move my car up some so he could get through. And I did. I moved up just a little so that he could get through. I thought about it later, thinking, why did I move up? why did I not just stand my ground and make him wait just because he told me too? I wanted to go back and do over that moment so I could smile and tell him no, and make him wait like everyone else. So, I'm starting to see the problem now, I have been letting life happen to me, over and over and over. I have done very little to create action within my own life, besides whine about being unhappy. I find myself willing to let some dreams go, and then I stop myself, and think, wow, what are you doing? Those dreams are what keep you moving day to day, give you something bigger to aim for. If you let them go, what do you have left, what will the drive in your life become? Letting them go, is how I set the wheels in motion to become exactly what I despise the most, a person scared of life and so comfortable in her rut she never sees enough life to want more. I want more. I don't want to be that person, who's so scared of life she wont even travel alone for fear of the consequences.

So what now? That seems to be the problem within my life. I can usually identify the problems pretty well but the solutions evade me. even as I write this I can feel the anxiety of change moving within me. I have heard once that the trick to making any kind of a change is to first identify the end result you would like to see, and then break the process into small manageable steps. What do I want? even that is a hard question to answer. I want a place of my own. I want a better job. I want work that makes me enough money to pay the bills and makes me happy, or at least isn't too annoying in the process. I want a better relationship with myself. I cannot find someone to love me if I don't first love and respect my self. I am moving in that direction, but there is a long way to go. What else do I want? I want a life for me and my children that satisfies me. And what in my life would I have to have in order to feel satisfied? I would have to have the ability to respect myself and believe that I need more, and I deserve more in my life. Maybe I have accepted what I've been dealt so far is because that's what I feel is acceptable. You treat people in your life how to treat you. I have allowed too much. I want more, I need more. Why don't i respect myself? Why do I allow people to treat me life a servant? I am a helper. I like to help. I find satisfaction in knowing I made someone elses day a little better because of my actions or choices. And I allow people to take that too far. Why is the ability to set and maintain boundaries so hard for me? So in reality this process needs to start with setting and maintaining boundaries in my life and in my head. I have done this once, just recently. Someone wanted to alter the course of my life drastically, with his ideas and his changes. At first, I was listening. I was giving all the right answers and nodding appreciatively. And it occurred to me, finally that I didn't want what he was spinning. These were not changes I desired. But my initial reaction was to go along with his ideas. But I finally I found myself. I found my voice. I said no thanks. and he argued. He couldn't possibly understand why I would turn down an offer like his. I made my life happen, in that I made my choice and stood my it. Simply because I didn't want to. I didn't feel like the right choice. If I did it once, I can do it again. I can find my voice and find more than just telling off one person. I just need to take the time to look. I don't know what the next step is yet, but my recent actions tell me that the ability to speak up for myself is there, its always been there waiting. I just need to use it once in a while.

making progress

I know we are almost there, and all I can think about is the amount of work that lays ahead of me right now. There's packing and moving and sorting and the like. We are so close now but the end still seems like its so far away, even though we are looking at a total of 11 days or so. after 9 months 11 days should be no big deal right? Yet I'm like a kid at Christmas, I want it NOW. And yet there is some anxiety over the move. Patrick has become very attached to our current furniture which does not belong to us. He was very upset when he realized we would not be keeping it. Even the reminder that we were to get new only helped a little. I can only hope I can dig deep and pull out just a little more in order to get us through this last stretch, At this point I find myself wondering what else I could possibly have left to give. Yet, I know I will find it somewhere. I simply have to.

We have a floor!! The pseudo hardwood floors have been installed! I take every step we can mark as one that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. The date of December 18th has not been changed...yet. We hope the reconstruction company will be true to their word. We are supposed to be getting carpets this week. I just want my home back.

the countdown has begun

The reconstruction company claims we will be back in the house on or around the 18th of this month. I'll believe that when i see it, but i'm gonna try and hold them to it. Maybe one thing is going right today.