Just my thoughts.............
Hope they may help someone else!

I've sat and thought many times about my life and simply life in general. I look around me each day and see so many children being brought up in dysfunctional homes. Homes with one or more alcoholics or substance abusers, some abusive or neglectful to their children or spouses.

I can still recall growing up thinking; when I got older I would change my father or make things better for us kids. I could look around me and see that my home life wasn't like everyone else's. My friends daddy's didn't come home drunk everyday and their mothers weren't' abusive. They weren't neglected as far as I could see! I remember always thinking, I could make it better. I just wasn't sure how at such a young age.

The years past and they were more often than not hard, if not almost unlivable! Yet, I still grew up wanting so much to help others. To let them see that life didn't have to be that way! I started with my own family.

I married at the age of nineteen and started my little family soon after. I was able to give all the love and attention I was denied, to my children. I bathed them in it! Certain that my children would never suffer any of the things I had! I was wrong....

I think growing up in such an atmosphere, that it just becomes "normal" to you! When my husband started drinking and abusing me, I stuck around. I thought I could change him! For sixteen years I deluded myself with that thought. If I were only a little slimmer, prettier,more understanding, or patient, etc.

It took me way to long to realize that I couldn't change him, that it wasn't my place, my right, or my purpose in life to do so. If he was going to change it had to be because that was what he wanted to do! Something he needed and choose. I was only responsible for myself and my three sons and it was time for a change.

I divorced him, and my children and I went on alone. One of the first things I did for myself was enroll in Emotions Anonymous (E.A.) and put my children in counseling.

I was afraid, I won't lie to you. I was a mother all alone, with my three son's to support. But, by the grace of God we made it!

I started pulling out that little girl in me. I gave her a good look. She was still afraid, still felt abandoned and neglected. She felt vulnerable and afraid to trust! She also still thought that she could change things if she just worked a little harder!

I started "talking" to my inner child. I began trying to soothe her and let her know she was loved, important and only vulnerable if I let myself be so! I try and let her know that she has a right to be happy. That its ok to be afraid but, not to let that fear immobilize her to where she can't or won't move. I tell her she is pretty, intelligent, and worthwhile! Sometimes I even cry with her. Sometimes now she can laugh with me. We have become friends at last!

I have been more than ten years in the healing process. That may seem a long time to some but, how long did it take for this same child to collect all those feelings?

I look at my son's I have raised and can say; "Hey, Look you didn't do to bad of a job!" I look at my life and can say now that even thought it isn't perfect (who's is?), that I am growing and I am happy. I still have to pull that little girl aside (just as we do our children at times) and tell her; Stop, come on lets talk this over! It isn't an easy process but then; raising any child isn't, not if it is to be done well. It's a continuing effort but at least I am willing to try. Those that raised me didn't even try!

I make mistakes and have to begin again sometimes but, I am learning. I also have set backs but that just makes me keep trying. Practice makes perfect! Its my life, let me make it the best it can be. In doing so, maybe I can be to myself and others what they need. But mostly, to my own self true !

I think life is what we make it. We can let all the influences or circumstances in our lives rule us and hurt us or we can say, ENOUGH! I can see no reason to let them allow us to make excuses for our behavior.

I've decided that I may only have one chance at this life and if so....... I want it to be "MY LIFE" lived the way I choose to do it! Not, controlled by that child with in. Time for her to grow up, painful as it has sometimes been.I applaud her growth, and her strength. I can see her sometimes, the mature content person God created and meant her to be. I await her arrival with open arms!



©2005 Tina Clark