I am on my own for the first time in my life. It has been the scariest but most rewarding two months of my life. I have begun to find out who I truly am deep down inside. I have learned who my true friends are and those who have just been there to use me. I have also meet quite a few new people. I have developed a deeper relationship with my children and grieved for a lost parent and friend. The last several years, months, and days have been hard but I have become a stronger daughter, sister, mother, friend and person through them all.
I am for the first time in a long time happy. I think in some ways I had forgotten what it was like to be truly happy, not just putting on a happy facade for everyone around me. I have laughed more and smiled more than I have since childhood. My stresses that I blamed on losing a best friend and my dad weren't because of them but because I couldn't let go of something that wasn't good for me. It took one very dark, painful moment to realize I needed to close a door and open a window.
Today I was spending the first day of Spring Break with my children. We slept in, had a lazy morning of watching tv and before we knew it we were still all in our pj's and it was four in the afternoon. My children were amazed and a little shocked to see their uptight mom not wanting to get up and rush around to clean house, make lunch or anything else. Instead the person in front of them was relaxed, enjoying a rainy day inside with them. I had told them everything that needed to be done could be done tomorrow. The smiles on their faces was all that I needed today. Today, I became the mom I had always wanted to be.
Through some old friends and new ones, I have found that each moment, every new memory, each breath I take is wonderful and blessed. They have helped unleash the true person I have been but been to afraid to show because I was supposed to be the responsible one, the strong one. I am still that person, only now I can be a little more happy, smile a little bigger, hug a little tighter and live more free.
Today, I realized I am beautiful, inside and out.
Today, I realized I am who I always knew I could be.
