OD, your flame flickers toward the end of the wick

You know.

I do miss this place.

I miss the friends I’d made here.

But honestly?

I really don’t miss feeling like this was the only place I had to go to have human contact.

I don’t miss defining myself as ONLY a mother. And that’s what I really did here.

I don’t miss spending almost all day on OD just to escape the bs that my life had been then.

This won’t make sense to anyone just running across me. Or those who haven’t read past what is public.

It may make sense to those who’ve read all of the entries from years past that have been private for quite some time.

I do wish I would write here more. But I don’t feel compelled to do that.

I’ve changed so much from that person into who I am now, it’s crazy.

You wouldn’t know me anymore…well I suppose you would, but what 4 or so years does to a person. It’s nuts.

Am I totally happy in life? Nah. But no one is ever completely fulfilled, whether they want to admit that or not. There will always be SOMETHING that they wish they could change, regardless of how big or small.

I’m just not anywhere CLOSE to being as unhappy as I was. I am happy.

Life changes and I love that.

I love the man I’ve married. Am I happy with how it all started? Happy with how things ended with the kids dad? Of course not.

But we never really realize these things until we look back on them.

I love my husband. I love that we can have intelligent conversation. With each other. lol I love that we can pick on and joke with each other. I love that we share interests and friends.

I love knowing for a fact that it was NOT a ‘let’s relive the past’ sort of thing. Proving that.

We’re not perfect and I love that. We fight, I push him to the brink of pissiness (let’s face it, right or wrong, women do that), he’s an asshole, we don’t agree on shit, petty things become wars…

And then we’re ok. Is this normal? I dunno. Define normal in an objective view for me. Don’t think anyone can.

I love our kids. I love everything about them. I don’t like a lot of how they act sometimes. And that IS normal. I realize how easy it is to make your mother cry, and that is only at these ages. I struggle to know what is the right and wrong way to raise them, discipline them. I discipline them, and wonder if I was too hard. I cry when I KNOW I’ve gone too far. I fight with my husband over how hard is too hard, because I’m constantly rethinking.

But it’s all ok in the end. We’re loved.

I love the damn animals like they were our children. When they hurt, I cry.

I hate our finances right now.

I love how things work out.

I dislike not having a few more close girl friends; I feel I’ve changed to the point I would either offend the ones here or we have nothing more in common…

I like the very open opinion of the few I know who’ve lived longer than I…have looked into my eyes and honestly told me that they didn’t mature to realize the things I have until they were much older.

For some reason, that humbled me, when it otherwise would have made me proud.

I like who I am. Who I have become, and so long as the change continues in this direction, I will be happy.

So if I continue to write on a very random and infrequent basis, forgive me.

I’m simply enjoying the view.