I was watching a movie called Now is Good that stars Dakota Fanning. She plays the role of a teenager that is dying of leukemia and gives a wonderful performance. It's a tear jerker, so if you're not in the mood for a good cry, don't watch it. As for me, I don't think I'd realized how in need of a good cry I was...nor how therapeutic that can be.
I've been wanting to write things down lately, but keep putting of hand writing in my journal because I print out pages from this blog and put them as journal entries. So, it's been sitting there and I keep putting of writing even though I know that this is a good way for me to express my feelings and get them out so they aren't bottled up.
It occurred to me this morning that I've been monumentally depressed. I kept telling myself I wouldn't let my grief over a family situation affect my daily life, but it did. It doesn't matter how you try to bury some things and try to forget they ever happened, but the truth of the matter is, they come back at inopportune times sometimes and you just have to deal with them.
One particular situation deals with my oldest, Heather. I won't go into all the details here, as it's not appropriate on a blog. However, Heather has made several decisions in the past couple of years that her father and I do not support. We love her, but not her life choices at the moment. I can't speak for Joe, but I know that I feel that in some ways she's walked away from her family and all that she was taught as a child. I've felt that she made a 180 degree turn and is making life choices that are the complete opposite of the values she was raised with. It deeply saddens me to think of the life Joe and I had envisioned for her and see it not just slipping away from her, but being pushed away from her as hard and fast as possible. I spoke with her yesterday regarding looking at college, but I think she thought I was trying to pressure her when in actuality I was just trying to figure out her plans since they seem to constantly change. I thought she'd been planning on looking at a tech school, but then I hear her saying more about picking up another part-time job.
You know, every time I talk to my teenagers it's like things go in one ear and out the other. I tell Jeremiah that he needs to get caught up on his communications class, and he ignores me. Same issue with chores many times. "(Boy's name), please do the dishes (empty the garbage, sweep the floor, etc.)..." Response...coming back to a full kitchen sink, incomplete homework, overflowing garbage cans, etc. There are days that I'd just like to break out a willow branch and smack them one, but you just don't dare do that anymore since you'd have the kid or a neighbor calling child services on you. Taking privileges away doesn't make much difference with some of my kids since not much seems that important to them.
Hope is another challenge. She's an escape artist. A few weeks ago Jacob was home from school with a bad cough. I thought Hope had followed him downstairs, and I was doing the dishes. Then I went to check on them and realized Hope wasn't in the house. She'd unlocked the door and slipped through the opening (even with the chain done), and left. I totally freaked out, but I figured she'd gone to "her" park. Yep, that's where I found her. She called, "Mommy!" when I came to get her like nothing was wrong. I didn't dare spank her since there were other parents around and it probably looked like I was kidnapping a child off the playground, but she knew by the time we got home how mad I was at her. Because Joe and I were both upset with her and voiced our disapproval to her, she actually has stayed in the yard since then. Doesn't mean she doesn't slip out of the house on occasion, she has. She just hasn't left our property on her own since then. Thank goodness!
Wow! Just writing some of my thoughts has definitely helped. I guess this is why God has asked us to keep journals. I need to be better about it. I used to be pretty consistent about writing. Now to print this out and add it to the journal so that when the urge to write hits, I will actually do it without any excuses as to why I can't. :-)
