Melancholy

Melancholy: a gloomy state of mind

That's me. Kids are gone for their summer trip, this year to Virginia. I hate it. I recently had an epiphany about them. Someone said something about having "freedom" while they are gone and how happy I must be...blah, blah, blah. It occurred to me that I am most definitely not happy for my "freedom". The epiphany is that without them, I would not be who I am. All the best things about me really have come from being their mom.

The truth is, I am not a good person. Not only am I not a good person, I would be a very bad person if it were not for them. I actually cried almost daily for the last eight months of my pregnancy with my oldest child. I would have cried the whole time but I didn't know I was pregnant for the first month. I am not proud of this fact but it is truth. I cried because I didn't want a child. I didn't want to be a mother. I had plans for my life and they did NOT involve a child. I was going to do something important, be someone important and make money. I wanted freedom and to do MY thing. Instead I had a kid and I knew, I was finished. MY life, the one I had planned, was over. The thing is, I had great parents and I knew what having a kid would mean. I already knew what it would mean to be a good parent and the biggest change would be that my world would no longer get to revolve around me. I knew that whatever I did, where I lived, the food I bought, the places I went, the work I did, all those choices would not be made with what I wanted or what's best for me in mind, but what was best for my baby. That was the example my parents set for me and I knew I would lay everything down for that kid and that's why I cried for all those months.

That kind of decision, it changes you. There is no escaping the change. I'm not perfect and I don't have it all figured out as a parent by any stretch of the imagination. But this week, I realized that those kids saved me from myself. The truth about me is that so much of what I do or don't do, or haven't done is because I know/knew it would not benefit my kids. I see this most clearly when someone wrongs me or someone I love. The first thing my brain goes to is the best way to retaliate. I don't just want revenge. I don't want anyone to think, "Yeah, I deserved that..." when I get them back. I want them to be scared shitless and move to Ohio. And I don't think about it for a second, I think about it, I develop a plan, I rehearse the scenario where I tear open a can of "All Hell" and dump it on them. I never think about making the score even, I think about how I can make that person pay for every sin they and their daddy ever committed.

But I know there is a better way... up on that "high road". And that's were I live because that's where I want my kids to grow up. I know that nothing good comes from destroying someone else. I know that forgiveness and grace is where real freedom lies. And those kids of mine, they keep me there because I have a job and a purpose to teach them right from wrong, to show them that Love is better than anything else and that forgiveness, hope and grace bring real freedom. And all I can do is be grateful that I am that I found all of it for myself when I became a mother.