Blabbing it out.

I got a phone call yesterday, and enjoyed catching up with this old friend. This friend, actually is one of my sister in laws that I have always admired and loved. The woman will tell you like it is. She gives advice which holds her honest opinion, and I always feel uplifted after each and every time I speak with her. She touched on some parts of my life that I needed reminding of.

She brought up the point that it must make me so proud to look around me and see this beautiful family I've created. I thought about that a lot yesterday. I can honestly say that I am proud and not only proud, but over joyed. I have three beautiful children, a treasured husband, and when I think about it - - all my dreams have come true. I have been so blessed and fortunate to have been created by Heavenly Father in a way that I am able to press on, and have been able to survive, and not only survive, but flourish. What a solid reminder to keep renewing my commitment to become this woman that I know that I can be.

We chatted about how hard the last year has been for me. And I explained some thing to her, which I think I've explain to you before, but I think I'll re-visit the subject. My children are growing.... happy in themselves and in our home. My children are currently ALL at ages that I have very vivid memories of. It stirs with in me my accounts of my life that cause me a lot of grief.

My little Olivia is two now. When my biological father decided to run off with some woman, he ditched us in a home of such filth, it almost makes me ill to recall. The adults of the home were nasty. Nasty in every since of the word. I was three, my brother was two, my sister four or five. I remember sleeping on the floor at night, huddled by my brother, over a heating vent because we were made to share a bed with a young child that peed the bed every night. The floor was better then being wet. I remember being hungry and cold. I remember wishing some one would come rescue me. I remember being molested. I remember being afraid and I remember my brother and I wishing to escape. I remember that when my grandparents immediately came to our aide, when they heard of the situation, I remember this man scooping me up to bid me fare well, and I remember very clearly thinking that I didn't want his hands on me, that he was a fraud, and that he was sick. I have never enjoyed a car ride more in my life, then that day when we drove away from that house.

My Ian is nearly six now. This is the age I was when my mother left in the middle of the night. It was around Easter, and also my birthday. And do you know it was only THIS year that I figured out why I hated my birthday so much?? Gosh, ya think? That time of year is tied around a lot of pain. I remember when she left us, I wished so for her to return. My heart ached. I remember being a young child at school and for the next couple years when ever I was asked to write about myself, I always wrote about how my mother ran away. I actually have some of those class assignments saved. I'm going to scan and post them at a later date.

And last, my Hannah is almost 8. At that age I found myself adopted into a family where I knew my new mother completely hated me. I remember that she was cold, and I remember crying often at night. I remember fear, yet of a different nature, and I remember feeling anguish because I missed my biological family so. I remember the first time my mother ever put her hands on me. We have lived in her home a year or more, and I had run outside to see who was driving down the drive way. For some reason that angered her, and I remember her coming into my bed room while I sat on the bed, and she grabbed the skin under my chin and the hair on top of my head and she pulled in opposite directions as hard as she could. Little did I know what I was to live for the next 10 years.

I look at my own children and I am more then grateful to realize that their life will not be as mine. I feel victorious that their childhood is happy, peaceful, and safe. Seeing how happy they are, reminds of that time, when I was a child, and was not. It makes me grieve for those lost years, it makes me angry of the unfairness of it all, and it makes my heartache being aware of how truly much I must have hurt. I am so thankful for the winds of change in my own life, that my children know not what I knew at such a young age.

I understand today how important it still is for me to continue sharing and healing. I realize how far I've come and how far I have yet to travel. And I will. I'll continue on, for days to come, down my less traveled road. Thank you for walking it with me.