The Give and the Get

It's been almost a month since my last post, and what a crazy month it has been. My baby graduated high school and left immediately on a choir tour through Philadelphia, PA, and returned to start working her first job. My oldest started a new job and a new relationship, and I, myself, am rehearsing for a show. Life has been hectic to put it mildly! I don't think I'm alone when I say that when our lives are rushed we tend to be a little more stressed. We're rushed from here to there. We don't take any time for ourselves, and the end result, for me, anyway, is irritability, and, frankly, I get bitchy with most of the people around me. I mentioned that my youngest graduated high school. This was certainly a happy event in our lives and cause for celebration, but it also brought with it anxiety. I have known this day was coming, and have dreaded it because along with her graduation from high school came the end of her child support down to the fact that the last payment for June was prorated because she graduated 3 days before the middle of the month. Forget the fact that she still lives with me. She will be living with me as she pursues an education in the fall. I would never kick her or her sister out of my house. But the law says 18, so in their father's eyes, his responsibility has ended. This is not a diatribe about the much needed reformation of child support laws. I only pointed that out to paint the picture of the mood I have been in for the last month. I have really been down, for lack of a better word. I saw something today on social media that really made me take a step back. Briefly, it shows a young man asking people in a pizza place for a slice of pizza because he is hungry. He's not dressed particularly shabbily. He just looks like a regular kid. I will say he's a little abrupt in the way he asks, and the two people they show that he approaches tell him , "No." The next part of the video shows two other young men approach a homeless man on the street and present him with a full pizza. He thanks them, and they move on. The same young man from the restaurant then approaches the homeless man and, again, asks for a slice of pizza. The homeless man shares a slice with him without hesitation. He truthfully has NOTHING except the clothes on his back, and he shares with a total stranger expecting NOTHING in return. Two statements are superimposed over the video, "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." Seeing a man who had NOTHING  give so freely really made me re-evaluate the way I look at things. I often think I barely have enough money to pay my bills and eat. How can I give what I don't have? Now, I am not one to compare suffering. I think it's wrong. Suffering is relative. If you are hungry and have nothing to eat because you didn't grocery shop this week, it does not make you less hungry because I remind you that there are people who are starving and have no money to buy food. It may make you feel bad about complaining, but it does not change the fact that you are hungry. Seeing this video didn't change the fact that I am struggling financially and wish there was a way to crawl out from under bills. It did however make me see my struggle in a different light. It made me appreciate the countless times I have been helped by family and friends and even strangers. It made me realize that it isn't always about running around and working myself to death for the getting. LIFE is about the giving. I guess you could say that my financial life is a struggle because I did make my life about giving. I am sure there are a lot of people who would look at my life on paper and see that I have been single for 16 years and think, surely you should have been able to "move up" in those sixteen years so that life at 50 would not be a struggle. And.....if I had made my life about getting for those 16 years, I probably would be at least comfortable right now, if not a little ahead of the game, but I didn't. I made a commitment to giving my time, as much as I could, to my children. That meant taking the jobs where I didn't have to work nights, the jobs where I was off in the summer with them, neither of which pay a very big salary. And what have I gotten in return? A LIFE! A life full of love and beautiful relationships with both of my daughters who have grown up to be amazing young women, something I'm not sure would have happened if I had spent all of my time getting instead of giving. It's just like the story of the butterfly. Without the struggle, the beauty never materializes. Did I like struggling? No. Am I glad I struggled? Yes.

Something I Almost Missed

When I was a teenager I never did the babysitting thing. If people I knew had new babies I never wanted to hold them. I didn't work in the nursery at church or help with the little kids Sunday school classes. I just didn't have any desire to be around children. I really thought I would never have kids. It just wasn't my thing. In fact before I was married I considered taking care of things permanently to never have children. I didn't take that step, thank God! I waited a while after I was married, almost 10 years, but I did finally actually want a child. I'm not sure if I've ever shared this before here, but I lost my first baby to a miscarriage, but luckily I did get pregnant again and about 40 weeks later I had a little girl, then 3 1/2 years after that another little girl. The teenager who didn't want any children was now a woman in her early 30's with 2. In 1992 and then again in 1996 I became a mother. Then, as life does sometimes, I was thrown a curve ball, and in 1998 I became a single mother. This thing that I started out never wanting to do at all I was now doing alone. Today is Mother's Day. A day set aside to honor those who gave us life, but this post is about honoring those who gave me a life worth living. Being a parent is hard work. Don't ever let anyone tell you anything different. It is the most important job in the world because, in essence, you hold the future in your hands. The  people you create and bring into this world will watch and learn from you. They'll pattern their behaviors after what they've seen you do. They'll treat people the way you raise them to, and they'll value and love themselves only if you treat them as valued and loved. You never stop being a parent. It is a tireless job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, but I would not trade it for anything! I am not rich. I do not have a high paying corporate job. I do not have a beach house in Malibu. In fact I haven't taken a real vacation in almost 10 years. Some people would look at those statistics and pity how unsuccessful I am at 50, but they would be so wrong. I have something so much more than material success. I have raised two amazing daughters, daughters that I know will make their mark in the world! Hell, they already have by the way they treat people in their everyday lives and the impact they have had on everyone they come in contact with. They are my legacy. They are my success! I have poured everything I am into being the best Mom and Dad that I can be. Am I the perfect parent? No, I have made tons of mistakes along the way, but I try to admit them and move on. I could not ask for a better relationship with both of my girls. We talk. Nothing fancy or ground shaking here. We talk. I treat them like people, and have always been honest with them and valued their input and opinions on whatever level they could offer them. More times than I can count they were teaching me something rather than the other way around. And as they continue through life and maybe become mothers themselves one day I pray that they will have the same awesome experience they have given me. I will be forever grateful for the privilege and honor of being their Mom and thrilled that life didn't work out the way I had originally planned.