i wanna hold your hand....

oh the power of holding hands! i have to admit that i love to hold hands but do not often think about why.....until last night.

last night i was feeling sad, scared, worried, stupid......all out of sorts. that is until my sweetie came over, sat next to me and held my hand. in that moment, the fortress i had built around myself began to crumble brick by brick. i should mention that i am a very talented brick layer and when it comes to building walls around myself to protect my feelings, i am very skilled indeed. but all it took was just that simple gesture to start bringing me out from behind my wall.

thinking about it now, i love holding hands because it is a connection to another that is simple and yet intimate all at once. it is comforting to know that someone is there to laugh with you, dance with you, walk with you, cry with you, or just sit with you. the point is, when someone hold my hand, i am not alone - there is someone there reaching out for me.

my sweetie and i hold hands all of the time - sitting, watching tv, walking down the street, in the grocery store, while out to dinner, and even at night as we fall asleep. i am so fortunate to have a man in my life who is so loving, patient and understanding and i am so fortunate to have a man in my life that will hold my hand at all times even when things aren't all that rosy. he is my someone and i love him dearly.

i forgive

forgiveness. this is something i have been working on recently. in particular, forgiving myself for the past. i have what i think to be a really wonderful life. a wonderful man who loves and supports me, 3 amazing kids who are all healthy and safe, parents who are incredibly supportive and, good friends, a home to live in and food to put on the table....the list could go on and on!

and yet there are days (many recently) when the budget is extremely tight and it is hard to get just the daily necessities let alone the little extra things, or when i find that i don't have the time to get all the things around the house done that need to be done or that i would like to do, or when i have to look at my sweet little ones' faces and tell them "not now" because i have school work to finish......on these days my soul is sad. i wonder "what if?..."

i'm a young mom. by that i mean i was just a kid myself when my daughter was born, 19 yrs old to be exact. i put off my education to work and help make ends meet and to be what i hoped was a good mom to my lovely little daughter. add a few years and two sons in the mix and i still haven't gone back to school and i am still struggling to make ends meet in a marriage that was anything near stable or happy.

i look back on so many decisions i made out of fear and ironically out of trying to make up for past mistakes - those decisions just led to more mistakes. and so i sit here wondering what if i hadn't become a mother so young? what if i found the guts and the day to pursue my education 15 years ago instead of 3 years ago? would i financially independent? would i be able to say yes to my kids more often? would i be less scared of messing up a marriage to a man i truly love and who in everyway is good to me and for me? would i have more faith and confidence as a parent and in myself? who knows?!

on the hard days i look back and wish i had done so many things differently. i've been doing that quite a bit lately and then i found this post and found something to hold on to. heather of desperately seeking sanity reminded me that i've gotten where i am because of the past - good and bad. and that in the end, it (the past) is irrelevant! what matters is who i am today and where i am going. i have learned a great deal from my mistakes as well as my accomplishments and have overcome many challenges. i am incredibly fortunate enough to have my children and to have found a man who i am so proud to call my love and if having them means having to have accept the bumps that have come along with the journey then so be it!

hopefully, i'll continue to learn how to hold on to that thought and learn to let myself off the hook - after all, i know how to do that for others, why don't i derserve the benefit of the doubt as well

road less traveled

i took a trip recently to utah with my parents and my children. very early one morning, i found myself on this road at sunrise. as the sun made it's way over the distant mountains, the following came to mind:

ROAD LESS TRAVELED
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

this poem has always spoken to my soul since the day i first read it over 20 yrs ago. as i stood in the middle of the road, listening to the silence that surrounded me and taken in the beauty of a world that i don't take the opportunity to admire often enough, i contemplated the road before me and the many roads i have traveled in my life.

to a great extent, i haven purposefully chosen the road less traveled. sometimes it was for the adventure. at others, it was just to be different. and at times, i choose it out of fear of the what lay waiting for me around the corner of the road most others were going down. these have been the most profound journeys in my life and that morning and every day since, i have contemplated the roads i have taken and realize that the choices i have made, truly have made all of the difference.

however, while i am grateful for where i am in my life today, and i understand that i got here by the choices i have made in the past, i am having a hard time dealing with certain roads i chose to travel and find myself having a hard time forgiving myself for some of those choices...