I am not ashamed of being a work in progress, in fact I am rather proud of it. Every day I pray to be a better person, the thing is, sometimes I don’t try very hard to do it. I know it’s tougher when I don’t leave the house for days at a time, and all my human contact is online or with my daughter, but I still have to work on it. I have tendencies to be judgmental, I noticed this when I heard lots of yelling yesterday from the upstairs apartment, I was thinking,”Crap the loud couple moved out and now we have this moving in!”
I don’t want to be that person, I want to accept new people in the building with love and acceptance, the way I want them to look at me since I am new here myself. So I work on it.
I told you that to tell you this, when my son and his wife moved to Iowa last summer they asked me to come with. I laughed about it, it’s nice that they want me close, but I was married to a man from Minnesota and lived there 13 years, the whole time wanting to go back to my beautiful Black Hills, by my family, and where I know how things work and people know who I am.
I made a lot of really good friends in MN, don’t get me wrong, many of them I am still friends with, I made many more in the 6 years I lived there after I was divorced, friends I made on my own, that never knew me as half a couple, that didn’t know what I had been through, that loved me and wanted to be a part of my life, that’s the best kind of friend to have.
So I told my kids no, I was not going to sacrifice my own happiness for them, as they were grown. I stayed in MN 7 more years than I wanted to for them, I was back in my much loved Black Hills, and had no intention of leaving them again, unless it was to move way south, better for my body to be where it’s warm. I talked to my sister about it, and said now that my kids are grown, I should not have to sacrifice my own happiness to make their lives easier anymore, I should be able to have my own life and live it the way I want. One of the nice things about being a young mom is that they are now 25 and 22, and I am 44, still young enough to travel and see things, and have a little fun.
I was wrong. Horribly wrong. It is not a sacrifice to be in the same town as my grown kids and grandbaby, it is a gift, of epic proportions. The sacrifice was being away from them, I don’t want to be a grandma who sees the baby every few months as time and money allows, I want to be here, to see her grown and change, to see her personality develop. She is 18 months old and I asked for a hug, she said no and ran away, then turned, smiled, and took a running leap to cover my face with kisses, she is so funny!
I have been here in Iowa for just over a month, I babysat one day last week, when they came to pick her up I mentioned what I was making for supper, my son’s eyes lit up, so I asked them to stay, he still loves mom food, I love that, so we all had dinner together and talked and laughed, I go to their house once a week for family time, but in between we stop in at each other’s houses briefly, yesterday they stopped by on the way to the store to see if I needed anything, when I was at the dollar store one day they had all the Christmas clearance stuff for $.25, each, for everything, I went and picked up my DILLY, and we spent a very fun hour or so going through and buying things for cheap.
The sacrifice, sadly, comes in not doing what you want. Right now I want to be here. I don’t know for how long, but that doesn’t matter right now, all that matters is that my small family unit is all in one zip code, we share meals, laughter, and love on a regular basis. Happy happy happy. Love peace and hugs….
