You know, mothers are sometimes very shocked by the things they are expected to endure. The hardest of these things is the change in their children. I sometimes think it's so unfair that children grow up and become so different. I wish I had known when they were little that I only had their devotion for a little while. Soon they are the ones who leave and as if that's not bad enough and hard on a woman's heart they become people who don't even need you anymore. Now that's the part that hurts. I always thought I'd be close to my kids. I guess in so many ways I just took that for granted. I took a lot for granted. I know that one day when they have children of their own and they've spend decades sacrificing for them they will know how this feels. All the loads of laundry and all the trips to McDonald's later you find yourself crying over a blog and listening to some song that makes you ache inside.

No one reads this stuff but I need to write it. I don't know why. I wanted so much to have a happy memory of Christmas last year. It was happy but not complete like it could have been with all the kids together. It's hard when one chooses not to be part of our lives. Then another one breaks off and this after shock doesn't hit as hard as it probably could have if it had been the only fault line. I feel like putting some stuff in a back pack and just going to New Zealand. I hear it's pretty there. I wasn't a bad mother. I sacrificed for my kids. Most parents do but some are awful. I could have been a drug addict or brought home a different guy every night who abused the kids but I didn't. I kept it together and tried to make life as normal for them as possible. I didn't always make popular decisions and I did what I thought was best for all of them at the time. It was so hard. I was alone and scared and I did the best I could. Money was always a concern and just making sure they had clothes and food and a nice place to live. Coming to Colorado was to be near my family for all the good it did. My dad died the year after we got here and then my sister and mother moved in together. I don't see them at all not even during the holidays.

I don't write this for any self pity. I know things are the way they are and there isn't any changing them when someone else has choices that affect my life. I'm not an unhappy person. I get a lot of joy from my bulldogs. I get a lot of happiness from my husband Craig. He's a dear friend to me and listens to me and cars about my feelings. I do have that and I'm so thankful for it. If I didn't have Craig I would be truly alone in my life. I didn't think the kids would all move on so fast. I just thought I would be needed somehow but I'm not. That's okay though. I keep thinking of that movie Bridges of Madison County. How the wife and mother finds herself alone and wondering what to do with the rest of her life because when the children leave they take your life of details with them and all of a sudden you're supposed to remember what it was you wanted to do with your life. Now that you're not needed as a parent anymore. But you can't remember what it was that moved you all those years ago before those babies came into your life with their needs and their lives you had to protect. Somehow you think that you should be more important to them then you are and it's very sobering to realize you're not.

I guess I think a lot about what it must be like for my dad. Wherever he is. Helpless to really do much from his part of forever now. I know I would be frustrated if I had a child here on earth and I couldn't talk to them or have a "talk" to help them figure some things out. I sure could use a talk with him right about now. Ask him how he handled it when Anna and I moved away and all of a sudden it was just him and mom. I know he and mom were close and now I know why. They were all they had. I know why my mom was so devastated and scared when he was gone. I know why she clung to Anna. Anna was her life jacket. She didn't know me well enough to really rely on me.

Well it's amazing how writing lifts my mood. I feel okay now. Everything is going to be okay. I'll be okay. I just find it fascinating how things change. That's really all you can depend on. That nothing stays the same. Not ever.

Adele