The Loves Of My Life

Motherhood. 

What a difficult, rewarding, gut-wrenching, inspiring, heartbreaking, joy-filled adventure. 

Any mother will tell you that being a mama is the most challenging journey of their lives. Raising tiny, completely dependent humans into complete, “good”  adults is no easy feat. 

There have been so many days where I have felt like a complete and utter failure as a mother. Days where I have wondered what the hell the universe was doing bestowing these four souls I call my children to me. 

And yet…

Here I am with three of my four children now adults, and my youngest child turning 17 this year. 

And they are the best, most beautiful people this planet has ever seen. I couldn’t be more proud of the people my children have become and are becoming still. 

They are kind, polite, thoughtful, intelligent, loving, loyal, creative, hard-working, diligent, brave, talented human beings. 

They all represent the best of me and the best of Bobby. They are change-makers and peace-keepers. 

They are funny, and make me laugh until I snort. They are humans I truly enjoy being around and hearing their thoughts and opinions on things. 

They challenge me and make me strive to be a better person. 

Andy is my sweet protector. He has a heart of gold, and would do anything for the five of us. He is loyal and dependable. He is creative and funny. He marches to the beat of his own drum and has his own timelines for life. He is always up for an adventure and willing to try anything once. He loves nature. He is pure in heart. 

Joshua is independent and a free thinker. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and doesn’t live his life to impress anyone. He is who he is. He loves his family, and is grateful for the sacrifices we have made for him to play the sport he loves. Josh is a very talented soccer player. He is sarcastic and funny. He wants the best for his siblings and cheers them on in their goals. He likes to have a good time and is always up for a good party. Family is incredibly important to him. He is a champion of the disenfranchised. 

Sarah is determined, strong-willed, and courageous. She is incredibly intelligent and has the best belly laugh in the whole-wide world. She is independent and loyal. She loves her family fiercely and is willing to make their causes her causes. She is a strong support system for her best friend, her sister, Elizabeth. She is musically inclined  and thinks outside the box. She doesn’t give up and has an amazing work ethic (when she wants to).  She is tender hearted -especially towards animals. 

Elizabeth has a heart of gold. She is open and generous with all of her resources both internal and external. She is so, so creative. She is sensitive and feels deeply. She also has an eye out for those left behind by mainstream society. She has been her sister’s seer almost since Sarah began losing her vision and has been so willingly. She loves her siblings fiercely and is a mama’s girl. She loves playing soccer and is super artistic. 

My children are gifts to this world, and I sometimes feel unworthy to be their mother because they are such incredibly amazing, cool people. 

I am so lucky that I have gotten to have a front row seat as they have grown. I look forward to the rest of their journeys and being their biggest champion as they each go through this life. 

I love them more fiercely than I love anything else. I would do just about anything for them. 

They are the loves of my life. 

Random Thoughts and Photos

 I find myself wanting to say so much, but yet also feeling like I have nothing to say. The days of writing about playing at the playground and the antics of one kiddo or another seem to be gone. Instead, in its place, are adult (or near adult) children in the beginning stages of leading their own lives. For some of my children this means that I am no longer privy to the everyday details of their lives. It is only the select occasions that I get to share in their world, and often those moments don't seem exciting enough to share - even if I do cherish them greatly. 

It was so easy to write about our day-to-day lives all of those years ago, and there is a small part of me that misses that time period. The larger part of me though is so grateful for that time, but so thankful for the time I am living in now as the mother of three amazing adult (and one amazing near adult) children. I am so glad that I had the foresight back then to not wish away the ages that my kids were as some are wont to do. I have enjoyed every stage of their lives, even the hard ones, because I knew that it in the blink of an eye each stage would pass by. There are plenty of things that I got wrong, but that was one thing I got right. 

Of course, like most mothers, if I could go back in time from the moment I found out I was pregnant with Andy, I would have done some things differently. But I am only able to say that with the wisdom of a mother who has grown almost all of her children. I know that I did the very best that I could do in each stage of my mothering journey even when my very best was not very good. I think that is all we can offer our children as flawed human beings. I was always honest with my kids. I knew when I was not up to snuff, and tried to be as honest as I could with them about that. I have never been afraid to apologize to them when it was necessary because I wanted them to know I was human. 

If I am being honest, it has hurt my heart that this space has become a wasteland of unspoken words and stories. It has been happening for years. Gone are the months where I had multiple posts each week. Now, I am lucky if I get to this space once a month, but more often than not it is multiple months before I can summon up an experience or story to tell. The weird thing is that it isn't as if there aren't experiences being had each month. I guess maybe the problem is that this space is such a reminder of the past, of what was, and I don't do well dwelling on what was. There is an ache in my heart when I come to this space because I have spent my whole adult life being a mama - of being my kids universe, and now, one by one I no longer am. As a person who gave up a career and any semblance of a life outside of the walls of my home in order to dedicate my whole life to my children, I feel a sense of loss at the fading of this part of my life. Almost all of my children are pretty independent and don't need me for the day-to-day things of life. How does one transition from the only thing she has ever really known into something completely different?

Maybe, subconsciously, I ignore this space because it has always been a space dedicated solely to my journey as a mother. It's not that I am no longer a mother, certainly I am, but it's different now, and has been becoming so for many years. Most of the women bloggers that I follow(ed)

 no longer write once their children are all grown. That season of life of writing every day stories seems to be cast aside once our children are grown. We do not write about the transitions of moving from a place of having kiddos under our feet and in our homes to having young adults in college and the workforce. We don't show what happens to us when we move from the place of full-time mothers, teachers, housekeepers, taxi-drivers, etc...to living a life just for ourselves with careers of our own and dreams that solely focus on our own wants and desires. 

I wonder why that is - that we mamas no longer write about our worlds once the kiddos are grown. It's almost as if we feel there are no more stories worth telling. As if the only part of our lives that has value has passed beyond us and we are left with the ghosts of our past life hovering in the shadows. I cannot believe that this is the truth. Certainly, our lives are worth telling about and sharing even after our children have gone off to find and build their own lives? 

I don't have any answers, and I haven't for a long time. I only know that there is something that keeps pulling me to this space, even if it is not very often. There must be some part of me that believes that this next phase of my life is worth sharing. I suppose only time will tell... 

Sarah made this one day, when she was messing around with some legos. It is a representation of herself and Elizabeth. They are surrounded by a heart with the words 'Best Friends' written in contracted braille at the bottom. 

Superbowl Sunday snacks

New Beginnings

 We have decided to embark on a new chapter for our family. After living in this neighborhood for almost two years, we have decided to head out and find another more semi-permanent (for us) home. Our decision for doing so mainly has to do with the fact that our neighborhood, and in particular our street and a neighboring street, have experienced gun violence in the last six months, and it hasn't been just once. The mall a few miles from our house has had multiple incidents of gun violence these past six months, so much so that stores like Apple are pulling out of that area and are moving to a safer location. In the other direction, a few miles away near the University of North Carolina - Charlotte campus there have been multiple gun incidents as well. Some of them have been drug related, but at least one incident involved a mother of 4 being shot to death by an unknown assailant while getting money out of an atm. The perpetrator was not known by this woman according to video surveillance and police reports. Some random shmuck decided to rob and kill an innocent woman. 

The gun violence on our street was a drug related/ gang incident in which a car was chasing an individual who lives on the street next to ours through the neighborhood. There were two different guns fired, one of which the police said was a high-caliber gun, three neighbors had random bullets sprayed through their homes. Two of them had a stray bullet go through their windows and into second story bedrooms. We all heard the gunshots that night - as we did the weekend or so before when a gun was discharged right in front of our home at the bottom of our driveway after a party a few houses down got out of hand. These are not the only incidents either. It is rare for us to not hear guns being fired on the weekends. 

The police presence has been almost nil. They come after these incidents, but then leave and do not patrol our neighborhood until the next incident occurs. Then they come and take a police report, leave, and that is that. 

It is crazy to me that I live somewhere where I feel partially unsafe. I have lived all over this country, and never once have I felt unsafe in my own home and walking the dog through my own neighborhood at certain times of the day/night.  Yes, most of these incidents are drug related and only seem to affect those involved, but my new reality is that on any given night a random bullet could come into our home because a shot missed its mark. It is scary. I never in a million years thought I would live somewhere like that. We live in a nice neighborhood where I would never expect gun violence to occur. Maybe, that's my problem though. Maybe gun violence can happen anywhere? Or maybe I just shouldn't live within a city's zip code? 

I don't know. What I do know is that I am very thankful that we have the means to move ourselves as it is not cheap to do so. I am excited (as is everyone in the house) to move to a house that better fits our family's needs and to go on the house hunting journey as a family. In all of our moves, this will be the first time the kids will be able to (most of them) join in on our search and put their two cents in. We plan on beginning our house hunt in earnest on April 1st, but have been scouting a few locations already. 

What we do know is that we are looking for a five-bedroom house that also has an office. We would like it to back up into trees/woods so that we are not looking directly at our neighbors behind us. I would like a new build, but that isn't a must. I would also like a nice kitchen with wood floors on the main level, and carpets on the second floor. I would love to have all 5 bedrooms on the second floor. A deal breaker is if a neighborhood does not have a community pool. The summers get too damn hot here, and there are very few public access points to water such as lakes locally, so a pool is a must. Bobby would like to find a house with both a front porch and a deck. Another major plus for him would be if the house has a basement. (These seem to be rare here, but they can be found occasionally.) 

I am excited to start a new chapter in a safer neighborhood. We are looking to stay at this location for the next 3+ years so that the kids can start/finish their college experiences. North Carolina, as I have mentioned before, offers amazing scholarships to kiddos who are residents to this state making college very affordable. We will most likely stay in this state until everyone has obtained his/her degrees. Then we will head out to somewhere more to our liking as we do not want to remain in North Carolina long term.