Breaking Point

The fact that I grew up surrounded by religion has planted thoughts in my head that pop up when everything goes crazy. God will not give you more than you can handle. While this is a very comforting thought, it is a painful and contradictory one as well. As I have gotten older, religion isn't comfortable to me anymore. Notice I said religion, not a belief in God. I still very strongly believe in God, but I wonder, quite often, why? I am not trying to make myself sound pitiful, there are many people in this world that have things much worse than me. My heart hurts for all the pain in some of the people close to me's lives. On the other side, I ask why me? I will be honest and say I get jealous sometimes. I'm jealous of the people who get pregnant and have a baby with no complications. I'm happy they don't have to go through that. I wonder why people who drink, smoke, and do drugs have healthy babies, but it's not for me to know why. I couldn't be happier about Anthony, and the blessing he is in my life, but I can't help me jealousy when everyone else babies develop on time and healthy. I know it could be so much worse, but it's the thoughts I have. I don't always have these thoughts, but they come at bad times. Now deployment, I feel that I have repressed my saddest and worst feelings in order to deal and now I feel like I'm hitting a wall. If one more person says it's so close I will punch them. I am spent, and my emotions are everywhere. I am not writing this for pity or phone calls, this is for knowledge. No one will know exactly what I go through, nor will I know someone else's pain fully, but this is a glimpse. The things we think and do not say. That is what it's always about right? I can take whatever comes and I'm not supposed to freak out. I supposed to be over my babies by now right? F that. I'm tired of keeping up appearances, and I am not always just OK. I have days where it consumes me, and when everything else in my life goes crazy, it leaves the door open for more crazy. I don't care if I sound like a broken record. In my heart is a broken record of all the things that hurt and can never be fixed. I am OK, I can deal, but cut me a little slack sometimes. The number one lesson from all of this in my mind is never judge people's actions, you have no idea what is under the surface. Back to my original point, how much does it take for me to break? I don't feel allowed to, ever, and I'm not sure what to do about that.

Expectations

My whole life has been made of expectations.Expected to obey parents, to be a good student, to be a good christian, to make something of myself. What do we do when things do go the way we expected them to? I expected to grow up, go to college, get married, have kids and a career, never want for money, and stay in Dallas. I got married, right after cosmetology school. I had a job or two. Having kids was one of the hardest things I've ever done. College stared later, and I am a stay at home mom. The question is, even though everything is not as expected, am I happy? I am getting there because I am staring to realize more and more to let go of expectations. Especially the ones others have for me. I am not that domestic, I can only cook a few things because I never really try. I didn't grow up cooking or cleaning. I don't understand how I would contradict myself, here I was feeling like an empowered woman, then I try to hold myself to the old school standards of what a mom and wife should be. I expected to have children easily, I was young and health right? What else can go wrong? Everything apparently. When I finally got my baby, I had expectations of how birth would go, and how life will be with him. Then I end up with a c-section, he ended up in the NICU, and told me he had Down syndrome. Even though he wasn't what I expected, I couldn't be happier with my son. He has a personally that attracts everyone. You can't help but smile back to him when he smiles at you. Sometimes I get tired, and jealous of everyone around me with kids who don't have to go to the doctor often, and will hit all their developmental milestones on time, but then I think what if I had lost another child? He's pretty much healthy, and he's very happy, what else do I need? My life doesn't look the way I thought it would, but I wouldn't change anything but my expectations.

Who am I?

Who am I is a question I have asked myself a lot recently. I know who I was in the past but who am I now? I know that I want to be the best mother and wife that I can be, and I know now that my best isn't everyone else's best.I know I'm tired of taking everyone else's BS at the cost of what I want. I know that I can't continue holing myself to impossible standard in some aspects of my life, not caring about other aspects of my life, and feeling inadequate when things go wrong. I know that despite what has been said in the past I am responsible and mature, and the people who said those things never truly saw me. I know that many of my family members have assessed and judged the child I was and haven't seen the woman I am now. I know that I can't define myself by other's view of me, I need to define myself. Now I plan on not compromising myself so much for what I want out of life. I have lived so long worrying about what is thought of me that I have trouble knowing what I think of me. I am no proud of being a pushover for so long. I am tired of doing things for people who wouldn't do the same for me. I don't care if you don;t like that my view are different than many of my family's. Most of those things never felt right to me.
I want to have no more regrets.
I want to be more blunt and say what I really think.
I have a strong belief in God, but I feel organized religion has corrupted everything.
I believe in the military.
I believe in our country and I feel we need to take care of home more than running around trying to fix the world.
I want my son to live a happy and uncomplicated life without being looked on as just having Down syndrome, or just different.
I want to help other parents of loss and disability. They have been shoved under the rug too long.
I want to own a home.
I need to be free of pushy people who think they can control me. I am not a child.
I have accepted that you never stop grieving those you have lost, it gets easier with time but never goes away, and that is OK.
I will not apologize if my grief makes people unconformable.
I believe being gay is not a choice, and I have a soft spot in my heart for homosexuals. They are targets of hate crimes and can't even get married. While it may seem it is trendy to be gay, these people go through major emotional issues,and I think that is widely forgotten.
I believe the government is too powerful, and too in everyone's business.
I believe the vast majority of Americans know nothing of politics, and just follow celebrities.
I believe that abortion is not a religious issue, but a moral one. When science continues to prove how much babies in the womb are capable of, even at a few weeks gestation, how can you tell me it is acceptable to kill your own child? Every human being was a tiny cluster of sell in their mother's womb, and I don't think it's anyone's right to kill it.