From the Heart

Healing.
Lately my heart and soul have been doing A LOT of healing.
Healing is difficult.
It means letting go of all that has happened in the past for hope of what the future holds.
I didn't always have the perfect childhood growing up and what I did have was way less than normal.
For so many years I have been ashamed, embarrassed, and downright depressed at the thought of some people in my life.
People who were supposed to be next to me every step of the way growing up.
People who were supposed to be my strongest supporters.
People who were supposed to get me through every struggle I ever had to face, without fear.
People who were supposed to tell me it would all be okay.
People who were never supposed to abandon me.
I didn't have that kind of experience growing up.
And for that I harbored a lot of animosity, hurt, and hatred
For many, many years...
perhaps too long.
Now that I have children of my own I see my life through a different perspective.
The lens through which I see my life is clear because I know how I don't want to live out my life.
My life is now lived through my children.
My days are focused around them and has been since before they were born.
My children's earliest memories will have me in them.
Their wants, their needs, their trials and their successes, I was there for.
My whole world is saturated by them.
They are the reason I wake up every morning.
Every smile, every tear, every twinkle in their eye I have been able to experience first hand.
I am so lucky!
And for that I am forever grateful.
I now realize that for whatever reason certain people who weren't in my life-in the way I would have liked them to be-for a long time weren't for a reason.
I would be lying if I told you I knew the reason they weren't.
But I don't.
And I may never...
And I'm okay with that.
What I can tell you is that no matter how bad things have gotten you can always, always start over.
It has taken me 28 years, a marriage of almost 9 years, and 3 kids to realize all of this.
And that is OKAY :)
This road to healing has been anything but easy.
Most days it took every fiber of my being to not look back at all of the hurt I have endured in my past.
It would have been much easier to harbor all those feelings inside me, to lock them away in a dark place, and throw away the key, forever.
But that would not have been good for anyone.
There has certainly been a lot of hurt, but I have so many beautiful beginnings to look forward to.
From this point we have begun to build new.
We have new beginnings filled with a new love, new respect, and new caring for one another.