DEFINING MOMENTS

I am going to get a tad bit personal and tell a little more about my life than I normally would. You can think of me what you want and I really honestly don’t care. If I cared about what people thought about me then I wouldn’t be who I am today and the last blog I wrote would have killed me but I didn’t let it and I’m here and I am me. You either like me for who I am, or, you don’t and you think I am a total bitch and that is fine! It’s me….take it or leave it.

Recently, a very, very intelligent person (my brother, Nate—wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give him the credit here) pointed out something to me that I had never really thought about it and it has to do with the ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” of our lives and how they make us who we are. But I thought just a little bit deeper than what he was saying as far as ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” go…like when my first baby, Taylor (who is now 14), was born. WOW!! Now that was a “DEFINING MOMENT”!! Think about your first born (if you have kids) and how you felt at that moment when the miracle of new life was placed into your arms! My “DEFINING MOMENT” was a bit different because I had one of the hardest deliveries ever. But what I remember the most was my step-dad, Vern (who was still alive then) there and giving me that calm wonderful support that he was so good at doing. He hardly ever left my side for very long during those 17 hours plus of labor that I had with Taylor. Finally, after more hours than I care to remember, they finally took me for an emergency C-Section. It is hard for Taylor because he doesn’t remember Grandpa Vern. He watched the video of his birth for the first time and just kept saying mom “Who is that guy???” I said that’s Grandpa Vern and his first birthday video was the same. While we watched him dive into his cake, Vern was there in the background.

It wasn’t until I thought he was old enough to understand that I told him Grandpa Vern killed himself. For years, I just told my kids that he had died. When Taylor was old enough he asked me “how did he die mom?” and I told him. This has to be hard for anyone to digest, especially an adolescent. Shortly after his suicide I had a miscarriage. It was awful. Planned or not planned a miscarriage is one of the worst things a woman can go through…..another “DEFINING MOMENT” who made me who I am today. Later, my “baby girl” Abrianna was born, also after a rough C-Section but nonetheless, she came out happy and healthy with 10 fingers and 10 toes and she looked just like her Daddy!!! Still to this day, 9 years later, she looks nothing like me…I think he conceived her all by himself it if is humanly possible.
It was a rough time for us though……..the picture that will always remain in my mind and hurts me more than anything is standing in the driveway with my brother, Stuart, watching Nathan and Aaron get off the buses from school. I couldn’t talk so I couldn’t tell them, but Stuart did (their Dad was gone…he had killed himself) and I think they already knew as soon as they saw us standing in the driveway. This was one of the very most “DEFINING MOMENTS” of my life. And one that made me see life so much differently than I ever had before. At the time of that incident I was in shock for a long time and then I fell off the deep end, because not only did I lose one parent figure in my life but I lost two for a long time, as my mom fell further and further into her own world of major depression and never getting out of bed, just as she briefly explained in the comment to my last blog that I copied in (with her permission). You know, when my dad killed himself, my husband at the time was not there for me either, which is okay, I have totally forgiven him for that, but that was also one of those ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” of my life and it killed our marriage/relationship.

The reason I now have a twinkle in my eye and try so hard to be the best parent ever is because I fell off the deep end at that point and if it wasn’t for the impact of the drugs I did, the crazy binges and those awful encounters/collisions with other people, people that were bad or people that were like me and looking to be with other people like me (misery loves company) I would not be who I am today.
I know there are still many ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” to come for you, me and everybody and I’m ready for them. I have met a lot of “phony” people who have no idea what it is like to live the way I did growing up, and plunging myself into the world of drugs and alcohol and that’s okay. If your life wasn’t like this then all I can say is you are one lucky human being, but please don’t Judge the rest of us for who we are and what has happened to us. I’m not phony and I don’t tell people when they first meet me that my life was the “Beaver Cleaver” life, because it was far from that. The important thing is that I want my kids to have it better than I did and my mom just reminded me of that yesterday while I was arguing with my husband and she was on the phone with me at the time. Thank you Mom! I love having you back! You went through all those horrible ““DEFINING MOMENTS”” with us and the majority of us fell off the deep end, but we seem to have all recovered slowly and you are one of the main reasons why we have-----I’m so grateful to you, Mom, and I thank God everyday that I have you back!! I can’t believe how many times I said “I just want my mom back”. I can’t wait for our trip in August, so we can spend that quality time together!

The whole point of my blog is that I hope you all reflect on those “DEFINING MOMENTS” and don’t forget the lessons you taught yourself, or the ones that life taught you.