Even when you think life is going to slow down, it doesn't. School is ending, piano lessons are finished (good-by job #3), the summer stretches before us. Not. Remember when we were kids and summer seemed to stretch on for so long? Why does it seem to shrink as we age? I look ahead to the events of this summer and it seems like barely any time at all.
Anime starts her drivers education course the day after Memorial Day. That will fill much of her time until she goes to camp for a week in the middle of June. Actress and Action start summer school in June, four days per week for four weeks. They also have softball and baseball respectively. I will have work at the restaurant and we will all have packing/boxing to do. Plus there is all the visiting of relatives to be squeezed into the month, not to mention house hunting. Come the end of June I will have to pass them over to their father and his fiancee for 5 weeks. (Gulp. Can't think about that yet. Too hard.) When the kids return there will only be a couple of weeks before school starts. There goes the summer.
This summer marks another change in our lives, which is good as this is my year of change, after all. The past several years have seen us spending our time at the nearby lake, hanging out with friends and family. I enjoy the lake, I grew up there, but it is no longer where I want to spend my free time. I love my family but it's time for me to forge a life outside of them, a life beyond that lake. Yes it's fun to hang out there but now is when I need to be exposing the kids to the other things that are out there. I want to take them to some festivals, some minor league baseball games, a couple of museums, and show them that there are ever so many things to do with your time beyond sitting on the beach and playing in the water. I want to broaden their horizons so that they can see that there is life beyond the small town and that there is always more out there to explore and fill their minds.
There are more reasons to why I'm choosing to pull away from this past-time. Some has to do with realizing that I think differently from my family and am choosing not to spend time with people who want either want to force me to see their way, talk about me when I'm not there, or choose to silently display their disapproval by ignoring facts. Case in point? My mother refuses to acknowledge that I am dating. Mr. Irony and I have been together for almost a year and she has never once mentioned his name and changes the subject if the kids bring him up. I have not yet informed family that Mr. Irony and I are house-shopping together. I want to wait until we have a house and a moving date, and until my parents have met him. Seeing as he lives almost 2 hours away and currently works seventy hour weeks it's been impossible to get them together. I'm hoping that during his vacation next month we can rectify that.
What is really comes down to? I'm scared. There's nothing they can do to change my choices but it's still scary to me to voice something that is going to bring more disapproval. However I can't live the life they seem to want for me. I can't stay here in a town I dislike, a job I hate, being alone and lonely until Action graduates from high school. My mother actually told me that I needed to wait 2 -3 years following the divorce before even looking at another man and that I should stay put until Action graduates (11 years from now!). Well, the divorce still isn't final, I knew over 2 years ago that the divorce would be occurring (didn't tell family until a little over a year ago), and I've been raising the kids alone for the past 6 years. I'm not jumping into anything. Believe me I've had plenty of time to figure out what I wanted in a partner and I was lucky enough to find him.
It's hard to use my own voice when I've let it be silent for so many years. It's scary. But I'm doing what I need to do for me and for the kids. Knowing that I'm doing the right thing will just have to be enough for me and somehow I'll work through not having my parent's approval.
**On an interesting side note, my posts seem to be more cheerful when the sun is shining. Can you tell that it's cloudy today? The lack of sun affects my mood and disposition more and more as I age, I'm noticing. I'm going to take my coffee now and see if a walk will improve my spirits.
1 comment:
In the winter, I can hang in the house and look out at cruddy weather.
In the spring and summer when it is SUPPOSED to be sunny???? I get very grumpy and pissed at the dreary, cloudy days....and our weekend and into next week is very rainy and yucky too.
Grrrr...
And, isn't it interesting, sometimes your family seems to be the people who understand you the LEAST??? I could write a book on that alone.
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