Reflections..

With all the drama going on around here lately .. I have been reflecting on some things.. My kids sometimes make me think they have lost their minds and as their mother I wonder from time to time if something I did or didn't do could have caused the way they act..

My first husband and I were married for 18 yrs.. we had 4 beautiful kids together.. you would have thought from the outside that our marriage was perfect.. Yeah OK..

I decided I couldn't take anymore of the way things were.. The things that hurt me to the point that I just couldn't continue to sacrifice who I was even for the kids to have a roof over their heads and food to eat.. I knew I could provide those things for them on my own.. I am a strong person.. I have never been on my own before.. I have never had to do things on my own.. I had to try though..

My kids wanted my ex and I to separate but when it happened they went a bit nuts.. now, I did expect them to have a reaction.. I took them from everything they knew.. I took them from everything they had come to think of as normal.. I wanted them to see their mom happy.. I thought they deserved better than constant fighting and name calling.. I wanted to give them and myself a chance at a better life and maybe a chance at a healthy relationship somewhere down the road..

Ron and I started dating a few months after Ronnie and I separated.. The kids loved him.. he was wonderful with them he is strict but not unfair.. still the kids lost their minds.. Sierra wouldn't go to school.. wouldn't listen.. chris wouldn't go to school , started smoking weed and so forth.. Even Chelsea and Kyle took their turns at insanity.. Hell I went crazy for about 3 months myself.. I was not the mother they had always known .. I was free for the first time in my life and I know I took that too far.. I saw what that was doing to my kids and stopped.. I stayed home.. I didn't go out.. I tried to bring back what we had lost as a family.. they didn't want any part of it..

Ron and I married after 17 months of dating.. we have the healthy wonderful relationship I wanted my kids to see.. I fall in love with Ron on a daily basis..he is still wonderful with the kids.. still strict but fair.. and still they are nuts.. Is it a requirement for teenagers to be clinically insane?

I think back.. If I had stayed with Ronnie ( an unimaginable thought) would it have made a difference in their lives.. I think it would have to the point that they would not have done as much as they have as soon as they have but I believe you can raise your kids only so much..you can teach them and tell them all they need to know about who they should be and then there comes a time when they will make their own choices.. they will do what it is they want to do whether you like it or not .. and you have no choice but to sit back and watch them screw up.. you can try to talk to them, you can try to tell them the things they are doing are wrong.. but they ultimately will make their own choices..

So.. I guess I try to blame myself for their behavior.. but I know.. the only thing that would have come from me staying where I was .. was my misery and the kids ultimately doing exactly what they are doing.. Not to mention I would not have found the only person that can make me feel like Ron makes me feel.. the person that makes me believe for the first time that not only am I truly loved but that I deserve the love he gives me.. there are no words to describe my life with Ron.. I never thought this kind of love was for me..

So.. I guess for now.. I will leave the kids in the Lord's hands.. and pray for them.. I know I gave them the knowledge to do the right thing.. now I have to believe that at some time they will come to the place where they will decide to use it....

Y'all have fun...