There’s been a lot on my mind this week.
I have probably been thinking more about the boys than I have in a very long time. Most of the day, every day. I don’t like to talk about it much, but some days, thoughts of them haunt me.
I am still grateful that they were a part of my life for a time.
I am grateful for the lessons I learned from them.
I am grateful for the lessons I learned from parenting them.
I am grateful that I had the chance to make an impact in their lives.
Even when my heart aches and my head swims and I have to blink hard to see past the tears that threaten, I am grateful for many parts of the experience, including the experience of letting them go and reclaiming my life again.
Sometimes, it might seem to the outside, that I am over everything. No, it is still buried inside of me. It will always be there, I think, like other losses that I still grieve. But it is possible to know something was not right for you and still miss that something. It is possible to know that something you loved could have been your ruination, and miss it, because you loved it, while still knowing you were right to let it go. It is possible to be grateful for an experience that also brought you pain.
This is finding peace.
This is finding the lesson in the difficult things that you go through.
I will still be grateful I got to experience the happy times. I will still love.
And, now I know, I will go on. I will still have a life. I will still smile, and laugh, and have good times with friends and family. At first, that seemed like an impossibility, something I didn’t deserve and could never achieve. I am grateful to have learned differently.
I am learning who I am, again. I am learning that while I am defined partially by the experience of having parented them, I am more than that alone. I am so many, many things and that experience is only one sliver of my life. It doesn’t make it meaningless, but it makes its meaning take on the proper perspective. I am grateful to be getting a handle on who “Katie” is again. I am grateful that I have discovered, partially through this blog and the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten, that my writing, my art, my photography, my life… that all of it has value.
I’m grateful that I can look back and smile, now, at least a little bit.
And, quite obviously dear reader, I am grateful for you, here, seeing this page, understanding and sharing with me. Thank you.