Patience

Yes, I'm back. This is my 10th post and I have over 300 hits on my blog to date.  Thank you for all of you who return to read my mundane ramblings that probably don't make sense half of the time. My mom told me tonight:  she talks to blow off steam, while I write.

It's entirely too late and I should be in bed, but generally I wait until the girls are in bed to log on to my online classes to get the most out of them that I can. Have I mentioned I went back to school? It's just on-line and I'm majoring in Web Graphic Design, which will possibly be another dead end profession (as I've had many people tell me so far, but I haven't listened to anyone up to this point, so why start now?) but it is something I'm interested in, so what the hell?

It was another rough day with my children after Lainey got home from school. We had a MAJOR melt-down (which I recorded ;-) ) about, you guessed it, Moshi Monsters. Needless to say, Moshi Monsters are hereby banned during the week at our house.  Did you know I am the meanest mom ever and I don't love my kids? Lainey said she hates me and will never hug or kiss me again, but ha, I got a kiss goodnight, so she must be rethinking that bold statement. At one point she was trying to negotiate saying she had "a deal" to make with me, but I told her I don't make deals with terrorists.  I discussed this matter with her father, who has given me full backing in this fight against homeland terrorism. Seeing as how she explained that he and her step-mom always played with them and let them do whatever, I thought it may be a good idea to put some feelers out to how things were playing out at their house.  Seems the same domestic terrorism hits their homeland as well. You never can be too sure about dads, you gotta love 'em, but they tend to be a bit softer that a mom. However, it's always interesting to watch Lainey as she talks to her dad, because she comes to the realization that even though we aren't together anymore we are "together" on all things involving her and her sister.

My dad was telling me tonight that he was impressed at how patient I am with them. Not always, and I find that statement a bit surprising seeing as how that was probably the deciding factor in the loss of my job last year.  It has taken me a long time to get to this point of being able to let all of the mean and hateful things said by people roll off my back. Many times, people don't even have any idea about how their words affect a person. Yet, I have learned that when I look back at how I behaved during the early days of my divorce, I often said mean and hateful things too. Things I never in a million years meant or believed, but I said them out of grief, anguish, and exhaustion.  I was like a child throwing a temper tantrum to the world.  At the same time I was ashamed, humiliated, and embarassed at my behavior and what was happening in my life.

It is still a long process we are going through, with a lot of healing and finding a new beat to flow with. But through all of this I know there is one lesson I have been studying and will continue to study: patience. My biggest prayer as I go to bed tonight is that this lesson is a bit more easily learned for my children that it has been for me. It seems to me I'm always waiting, but I know without a doubt there is something up around the next bend. I pray that their "something" is a thousand times kinder and better than mine, but I am sure that is every parent's wish.

In the words of a great song, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need". (I could have gone with Axel Rose's Patience, but that was always the song Lainey's dad sang to her when she was a baby... and I'm not removed enough yet to remember those times as fondly as I otherwise would :-) )