WHY I AM WHAT I AM...PART 2.

To add the last blog, I guess I never realized how poor we were because we never had people over to judge our house. I never saw that LOOK on their face when they realized we used 'rags' to bath with and there were parts of the house that were uninhabitable and doors that were pieces of plywood on hinges...literally. And that's the door we had. Only one bedroom had an actual door...and the bathroom. We used curtains for privacy.

I try not to say these things...or write them...or think about them cuz it feels like I'm betraying my family. Our code..by doing so. It feels like people will pity me even though that was many years ago and that house has been FINALLY renovated and is much more inhabitable now.

I'm only telling you so maybe someone can understand my weird relationship with money. My pride..in my children and my husband and on what we afford to give them or do for them. Some things that you take for granted I never will. I can't. I don't mean to shove it in someone's face who can't afford the same things but I certainly won't be any less proud that I can do these things for my kids. Maybe I'm wrong for that...

And for every bit that I spend on my relationship with material things I spend as much time or more working on the character of my children. I try to raise them the best I can. I want them to have everything I didn't. I want them to be everything I wasn't. I want them to be happy. And I think I've did a good job that while providing them with every possible luxury that I can...they are giving children. They are sharers and they are sweet and they aren't mean or ugly on the inside. They have empathy. I won't work to kill the good things in them like my Mother seem to do with me. I will nourish those things. I will nourish the whimsical, imaginative parts of them and encourage them in every way I can and for every time my Mother berated me for being stupid I win a little of that back when I lift my kids up for being wonderful. To be her means I lost. And I'm a sore loser. I won't be her. I am not her. And it's ridiculous how much I have to tell myself that to make myself believe it. I will lift them up instead of tearing them down. I will tell them there is nothing they can't achieve or do and I will work with everything in me to make that happen. We will build the normal life. My whole life I wanted to be some semblance of 'normal' and I fought hard to make that happen. I don't mean normal like I'm not a little bit crazy and I don't talk too much or spill too many secrets or act silly in public or voice ideas that aren't popular. I mean...have a car, and a house that isn't falling apart and a bedroom for my kids and toys and family vacations and friends over and kids that don't have to live in fear of their Mother losing control of her anger or a fight breaking out between their parents. I won't to teach my kids to not tiptoe around me but to stomp through and not be scared. I don't want them to be scared. There were times I was scared. I think you can become immune to fear. You stop being scared and start fighting back even if fighting back just means that little voice inside you that yells, "I'm NOT!" when she says your stupid. That might be the only way a 7 year old can fight a grownup but I did. I had to.

You know to add to that...thank God for good teachers. Because of them, because of their faith and their ability to praise me...that helped so much. There are a few that I would not have made it without.