Acceptance

You know that wonderful prayer they say at AA? .....accept the things I can not change..... Why is that so hard? It seems as though I spend my life, I mean many moments of every day, trying to accept the things in my life I cannot make different. I think it becomes problematic when those things you want to change are things you did not choose; you had no control over. My dad dies when I'm 17...no control. I want him back. I want my world back. I want to be comfortable and safe again. I want to be spoiled again. I want the life I was always promised and always expected. But, it cannot be. Life changes everything. 10 years later and I still feel angry that I was dealt such a crappy hand. Am I being selfish? Probably. Are there people in the world in far worse situations? Definitely. Should I still be crying and pitying myself after all this time? No. But I am. I'm human, right?

My life, as I knew it from birth, was ripped away from me the moment I learned Dad was dying of cancer. Cancer? Who dies from cancer? My neighbor. My classmate's Mother. My great-grandmother. My friend's uncle. Not my Dad. This life of mine that had been created in such "perfection" was all at once...gone. Everything I was secure with, everything I knew, all of my faith and convictions...tossed to the winds. The moment he died, I had to start over. Create a new me...at 17. How do you begin? Who do you become? Unanswered questions that would resurface time and again.

As I journeyed on, creating and re-creating me, I continually felt lost, empty, without my roots. Eventually you learn to cover up those feelings and just press on. Press on into the unknown. Press on into what could be. Press on and let go of the past. 10 years later and I still press on.

Don't get me wrong. I love my life...I love my husband and my son and our family. But I still can't help feeling envious of what I could have had, of who I always wanted to be but can't. I went to school to be a teacher, but I never intended to teach. I got my Master's as a "just in case" but never really thought it would be that important. Full-time mom. That was the job I naively assumed would be mine. Stay-at-home, four kids, dinners, laundry, vacuuming, windexing, full-time mom. But that isn't what is possible. There are bills. And needs. There isn't enough money to survive, so I must work. I must find the balance between hustling to make enough money to survive, budgeting, pinching every stinking penny, and being the full-time Mommy I so desperately want to be. It's hard. It's tiring. And...at times it just is.

I have SO much. I do. And I need to be more thankful for for the "here and the now." Lord, help me to accept my life as it has been dealt to me. Please keep my envy and jealously at bay. Allow me to be present in my life and content with the me I have become. I have so much. I am positively influencing people's lives. I am raising an amazing son. I am surviving.

I guess sometimes I just need a gut check and remind myself that life just happens. It's how you deal with it that makes you who you are. We don't have control over the things that happen to us...but I do have control over my acceptance of them. Today I pray for acceptance.