This morning on my Facebook, I asked the question: "What if the rest of your life is the best of your life?"  How many people long for that to be true but don't know how to make it happen?  I know there are people who believe you make your own happiness, and I suppose to an extent that is true.  But sometimes, whether from upbringing or life's circumstances beyond your control, you just don't know how to spot opportunities or how to see the possibilities in any given situation.  In that case you are labeled lazy or unmotivated or self centered.  I've said for a long time, my dad lived every day until he died and my mom stopped living long before she died.  But as I get older, I wonder if maybe she honestly didn't know how to live.  She spent the majority of her life being a mother and a nurse.  Then we grew up, moved away and had families of our own and she retired from nursing.

What comes next when something has been your life for so long that you don't know how to remake yourself and start again?  That is where I find myself of late.  Since moving to Georgia, I have lost my dad, had 2 of my 3 daughters rebel and make some pretty bad decisions, lost my best friend, Jennie, to cancer, and lost my mom.  I think I shut down after Jennie died, which means I've been among the "alive but not living" group since 2008.  I've wasted almost 5 years just going through the motions but not really feeling anything.  I think I would like to live, but at this point, really have no idea who or what I am.  I'm still a mom, of course, but not in my everyday life.  For all intents and purposes, I'm no longer a daughter.  I'm a wife but I find even that having less and less significance.  With my husband traveling about 3 weeks out of the month and then doing work stuff even when he is home, I'm alone most of the time.

There was a time when Jennie and I talked about starting a book club to meet people.  At one point in my life, I would have gone ahead with it even after she died.  But I now fear new situations....maybe what I fear is rejection.  In my head I know it's not the end of the world if I fail at something.  But somehow, even at 53 years old, I find myself reverting back to my mom's mantra, "It's better not to try than to try and fail."  It's more difficult than most understand to change the way you think after so many years.  In some ways, having my mom live with us for 6 years was healing.  In other ways it just caused more damage and reinforced the feelings of inadequacy and the sense that it was better to fly under the radar than to draw attention to yourself (and ultimately, her).  Sometimes I wonder if that is why I'm unhappy.  At one time, I was outgoing, loved meeting people and was always upbeat.  Something changed in the last 15 years and I am just the opposite.  But maybe I'm not.  Maybe that's still me underneath but I've pushed it down and put a lid on it and not being who I am, I've made myself miserable.  (Not unlike my mom.)

As silly as it probably sounds, I think the turning point was something she said about my "birthday week."  She's always been....fussy, for lack of a better word.  But while she was living with us, she still made me feel like a failure, even though I was an adult.  Ray had always done a "birthday week" for me.  He'd decorate the house and do little things for me every day for a week.  From the first year she was here, she'd get all huffy and indignant about it.  By the 3rd year, when he started the birthday week, she said, "I don't know why you think he should make such a big deal out of your birthday, it's selfish and silly."  BOOM!  She instantly took the fun out of it and made it a negative experience for me.  (And DON'T give me that crap about "no one can make you feel bad without your permission.....I guarantee you my mother could.  And we've all had the stomach plummeting experience when you're excited and having a great time and someone says something cruel or negative and suddenly you just feel shamed and stupid.)  There were multiple things wrong with her statement.  1) I didn't "think" he should make such a big deal out of my birthday.  He came up with and started that all on his own.  2) It's not selfish or silly for someone to do something nice for you and for you to enjoy it.  3) It really wasn't about my faults, it was about Ray's generosity and thoughtfulness.  Why did I let it get to me?  I guess because there are certain people we are vulnerable to and many times our mom's are one of them.  The person who should be your biggest supporter, love you unconditionally,  and be your staunch defender, instead takes every opportunity to reinforce everything negative about you.  The sad thing is, I think I had overcome it for the most part and was who I was supposed to be for a long time.  But the timing of her coming to live with us when I had 5 kids to protect from her negative diatribe (I didn't want them subjected to the same crap I was as a kid.) which left me open for attack, and she did every chance she got.  Anytime someone complemented me, she would turn it around and use it in a negative way and embarrass me.  So I think it affected me as much as it did because I had overcome it from when I was a kid.  I always assumed she didn't like who I was as a kid.  But when I left home and grew up and became a responsible adult and like who I was and then she still shows up and has the same disdain for who I am, it was hard (so far impossible for me) to push all those feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness down again.  Especially when we were having issues with the kids that sort of shook my confidence in my abilities.

What does all this mean?  Maybe everything or maybe nothing.  That's just it....where do I go from here?  That is still the biggest question.  Which brings me back to my original question.  "What if the rest of your life is the best of your life?"  As much as I'd like that to be true, I have no idea where to start.  I've been secluded (probably by my own choice) and not done anything outside of putting out fires at home for so long that I have no idea what I want to do with my life.  It's been so many years since I did anything that made me feel competent or like I had a contribution to make, that I don't even know what it means to get out there and do something.

Yep....it's my mom's voice again.  I wonder who's voice she heard......