Well, I was going to marry a guy and we were going to live happily ever after and have 6 kids and a dog and a few cats on a little farm.
We were going to be happy all the time. Our kids were going to be happy. And normal. We were definitely going to be normal.
I never imagined mental illness, syndromes and disorders. Not. Once. Not liver destroying medications that are necessary for mood regulation. Not speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Not gut wrenching grief. Not depression. Not having to justify to my extended family the decision I made because it was the least crap one of them all just to keep my little brood humming along for the time being. Not the feelings of isolation and aloneness.
I think I imagined some kind of eternal innocence and joy permeating my whole life.
I didn't honestly expect life to be all easy. I didn't. But I didn't expect it to be this hard.
Don't get me wrong. I am not in a constant state of depression or grief. They are things that come and go. And a lot of the things I did sign up for I got.
I am a wife who loves and is loved.
I have 5 amazing children, who are usually happy.
I even got the dog and cats.
In the long run the farm is not important.
I am often happy. I can even be content. I experience joy.
Overall, life is good.
But it has taken a long journey to get to where I can say that. And the journey continues. I am definitely not the person I thought I was going to be, and it is the journey that brings me to the place of being able to say those words that I did not sign up for. I don't resent the things that have turned up in my life that I didn't initially want, really. Because without those things I wouldn't be who I am now. And, honestly, I am finally able to say I am getting to like myself!
So the posts in this blog will I'm sure end up being a mix of stories about my past and my current everyday, failures and successes, joys and grief, ups and downs, the things that help me and the things that trip me up. A collection of thoughts about what it is like to be a wife and mother in my unique family. Maybe even a few dreams about the future, but the rose coloured glasses I wore in my teens are well and truly off! It's a record of my journey- what I thought I signed up for and what I actually got!
Michelle
6 January 2012
Love it! Cat wait to read more xoxox
ReplyDeleteMell
I can relate to this on some level... As far back as I can remember (age 3-4) I wanted children of my own, then later came the wish for a husband too. I remember saying in my teens that after school I wanted to work as a secretary, then get married and have at least 2 children by the year 2000. I wasn't bothered about a career at all. And I wanted, above all, to be a younger mum than mine was (who had me just before she turned 36) and also to have a healthy back so that I could lift my kids and swing them round in a way my mum could never lift me.
ReplyDeleteWe are now in the year 2012, and at age 37 I am single and have no kids, am now older than my Mum when she had me her second child, and have a bad back which means that when I do have children, I will not be able to pick them up and swing them round past possibly the age of 2. I have a career but I mainly do that to fill time and because I need to pay the bills.
Definitely not how I pictured things to be! Am I happy and content....I am learning to be. :-)
That's the key, isn't it? To learn to be happy and content in spite of the things we all face that are unwanted and difficult. xx
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