I’m exhausted. Completely exhausted; all I want more than
anything is to be able to sleep right now, but I can’t. Lately, my mind has been spinning a mile a
minute, focusing on day to day tasks has become a struggle. I wish there was a mute button for your
thoughts; a way to just clear my head and have some clarity for just a few
minutes. I feel like I cross one item
off my to-do list and add five more.
There’s always somewhere to be and something that has to be done-my life
is one big came of playing catch up. One
step forward, two steps back; sometimes it just isn’t fair.
This past year has been such a whirlwind to me. After graduating college, I thought I had
everything figured out. I was ecstatic
to finally be able to have weekends free from waiting tables and have the
leisure of working nights when I wanted to, not because I had to. I had started a new journey of living with
not only a roommate, but my best friend, and had finally started to figure out
this while co-parenting thing. Well, I
guess the saying “when it rains it pours” is true, because in the blink of an
eye my whole world changed. A mere two
months after starting my “big girl job” I found myself moving back in with my
parents. About a month or two after that
I found myself in court; awarded full custody of my son. I felt like I went from having it all to
having nothing; as if someone had pulled the rug from right under my feet. My routine, my normalcy, my life-nothing was
the same.
I went through all the emotions. Sadness, for my poor child who has moved 8
times in the past 4 years, who didn’t understand why he couldn’t see his father
anymore, who cried every time I had to leave him to go to work. Anger; for the friends who could lie, steal,
and betray me when I would have given the shirt off my back for them, and for
the selfishness of a parent who chose drugs over raising his child. Finally, acceptance, or what I thought was
acceptance. Because truthfully, you never
really learn to accept it, you just learn to deal with it and move on.
I can’t tell you how many times I have driven home from work
at 2 o’clock in the morning with tears streaming down my face, partially from
exhaustion and partially from missing my child so damn much. Waking up at 6:30
am and not getting to be until almost 3 am; it’s mentally, emotionally and
physically exhausting. Working 70 hours
a week and feeling like you have nothing to show for it, except having your
child’s life pass you by and you’re not there to watch it.
It’s so hard not to sit around and feel sorry for yourself
when life knocks you down, lord knows I do it all the time. Everyone has a plan or a vision of how they
want their life to turn out, but the truth is it doesn’t always turn out that
way. Guess what? That’s ok. Life isn’t about the destination, it’s about
the journey. Did I think that at the age
of 19 I was going to become a mom? Absolutely not. I can tell you one thing though, I knew as
soon as I was pregnant that I was going to do whatever it took to give that
child the best life possible. Did I
think it was going to be easy? No, I just knew it would be worth it. Life isn’t always going to be fair and you
won’t always understand why things happen, but they happen for a reason.
Hardships make you stronger and mistakes make you wiser. The importance is what you take from each
experience.
As I lay here in bed, it being midnight now, I remind myself
to take a deep breath and just let it all go.
Negativity is toxic; if you think you cannot, then you will not. If you want it bad enough, don’t let anything
get in your way, even if it isn’t fair.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, sometimes I feel like
at this point I could be immortal. Yes,
there are times that I have breakdowns (ok, all the time) and there are times
that I feel like my life will never be anything close to normal; but at the end
of the day I dry my tears, pick myself back up, and keep on trekking on. Life may not be fair, but I’ll be damned if I
let it determine my future and my happiness.
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