struggles « TheRealSharon's Blog

{March 19, 2011} It’s all about babies and weighting

Well, me and my hubby went to a friend’s house today for a fish fry. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet my friend’s newest little one, Aidan, who is 2 months old. He was so cute!

I enjoyed holding him, too. It was the first time I had held a baby that small in awhile. The last time was probably when his older sister was an infant and she is now close to 2. It felt like I had been holding a baby all my life, though. Which is not too far from the truth. I’ve been an aunt since I was 2 and held my first baby (that I can remember at 2 yrs. and 2 months). That baby was my first niece Krystal. We have pictures and there’s this big, humongous smile on my face cause I was so excited about holding a baby. I don’t think I even understand that I was an aunt until many years later but I knew what a baby was. I was obsessed with them.

I’m not making that up, either. Ask my mom! She told me that my first word was “baby” and I was so obsessed with them, she got a photo album and filled it with pictures of babies from magazines for me. I would sit there for hours and look at the babies. When other small children would carry their dolls around and throw them down when they were done or kind of be rough with them, I was like a little mommy. I would hold them just like an adult would and I would sing to my baby dolls, kiss their foreheads and gently lay them down. I guess I’m just a baby person…..I’ve always loved them and I’ve always known, without a shadow of a doubt, that I wanted to be a mommy one day.

At the same time, I was around babies and children enough to know that it wouldn’t be the best to have one too young. My mom was a kindergarten teacher and then a daycare teacher and at church, she would volunteer in the nursery and I would help out as much as I was allowed. Some of my nieces also lived with us for years on and off, so I learned the “not so fun” parts of having a baby. I guess that was why in high school when I took Parenting Class, I was the ONLY one in my class that did a paper instead of taking home the crying baby. It was one of those dolls that cried like a baby and you would have to get up and turn the key and hold it. All the other girls were all excited and I said straight out, “No thank you!” I loved babies but I was NOT about to be kept up late taking care of a doll and having to carry it around all the time. So I did this like 5 page paper that was an option. I think the teacher had to come up with it on the spot cause she always offered an alternative but I don’t believe anyone had ever taken it.

I’m 27 now and a lot of my friends MY age already have at least one kid, if not more. I don’t have any yet. It’s not that I don’t want any because I really, really do. Every time a friend asks me when I’m going to have a baby, I’ll play it off and be like, ” Some day” but secretly, I want to scream, “I would love to say I am having one now!” Things don’t always work out like in fairy tales, though. Part of me is afraid to get pregnant because of my weight. I don’t even know if I would be able to anyways. Another part of me doesn’t care and if I ended up pregnant tomorrow, I would be happy and deal with it. It’s safe to say my biological clock has been running for a few years now. And the other day I read in a magazine about how having a baby between 25-30 is the best time and then after that, the odds go down extremely. It scares me to think it might take me too long to get where I need to be, weight wise, to have a baby. Not to mention, what if I am never able to get enough off to have one?

It leaves me depressed. In fact, THIS is a huge issue that keeps me from wanting to go anywhere or do anything which is kind of counter productive. I just get so down about what I CAN’T do because of my weight and then when I tell myself that that should be motivation, it doesn’t work. Nothing seems to motivate me anymore. Sad, but true. I’ve just gotten so tired of failing in the past, that I have gone numb. The will is not there any more.

Tonight, my friend Allison commented that it looked natural when I was holding the baby. Well….it feels natural to me. It always has, to an extent. I mean, there’s a little nervousness there because it’s someone else’s baby and I don’t want them to be afraid that I could drop them or something. Other than that, holding a baby has just always felt right to me. It’s felt like what I was meant to do. I feel this strong maternal urge inside me that tells me that THIS is my true purpose in life. I know that I am meant to be a mother some day. I KNOW that I have that maternal instinct inside me, but when will I get the chance to embrace it?

I know that this is a very personal post and you’re probably wondering why I would share this with the world. Well…why not? This is the REAL me. Why should I hide who I am? I hide myself in real life too often as it is.

{March 18, 2011} They were all lessons learned

There was a time in my life where I thought I would get to an age where there were fewer lessons to learn. With age comes wisdom, right? So I used to think that the older I got, the less there was to learn. Yet the older I have gotten, the more lessons I have learned. Some were really hard to learn, others simple but there’s been an increasing number of lessons rather than decreasing. Gazing off into my future, I don’t ever see this changing either. I expect to be surprised constantly by the amount of things I don’t understand that I will some day grasp the meaning of.

What’s the biggest lesson you learned so far this year? | The Daily Post at WordPress.com.

It’s halfway through the 3rd month of 2011 now. When I read this question at first, I thought to myself, “What HAVE I learned this year?” and at first, it seemed like I have learned nothing. Maybe the biggest lesson I am learning right now is that I actually have learned things this year.

Take a room you see everyday and change one small thing in it. Just one small, unimportant, and seemingly unnoticeable detail. Then watch and see whoever you share your space with as they go through the room. How long does it take them to notice this change? Do they ever?

Sometimes that’s how lessons are for me. I learn one but it’s like someone took a room of my house and placed a paper on the table that wasn’t there before or moved a book to a different spot. I’ll go through days of my life without noticing the change but just because something goes unnoticed doesn’t mean it’s not there. The same goes for lessons. Just because I don’t recognize a lesson I have learned doesn’t mean that there are little changes here and there in my daily life that are from that lesson. I just don’t always pay attention.

Funny that…..I’ve always thought I was good at paying attention to detail. But maybe that’s only when I choose to recognize it.

What’s MY biggest lesson I have learned this year? Well, I would have to say that I have more determination and will inside me than I give myself credit for. I challenged myself to fight my procrastination on January 11, 2011. 1/11/11. I told myself I was going to write EVERYDAY and I also told myself there was no telling myself that I could make excuses. That the voice in the back of my head that likes to linger there and say “You can’t do it, give up”! will cease to exist when it comes to THIS. I asked others Do you think I will be able to? but to myself, I never asked myself if I would be able to. Because there was no question. I was going to do it, Mrs. Procrastinator was going to sit down, shut up, and get out of my way and I refuse to spend even a minute on doubting myself!

And 2 months later, I have NOT missed a day. Am I shocked? Nope. Cause I never once told myself that there was even a possibility that I wouldn’t still be going through with my challenge at this point. There’s no doubt in my mind that I will make it a year either. If the doubt starts to come, I shoo it away like a fly.

So where was this motivation years ago when I wanted it to be there? I have no idea! I suppose it would have been nice to have it there but why spend time regretting that it wasn’t there? I’m embracing the fact that I am overcoming procrastination in this one small part of my life. Do I still procrastinate on other things? Oh yes! Procrastination is a devil with a pitch fork and I am poking it away an inch at a time….Baby steps! Baby steps!

So going forth into my future…..The blog will continue EVERY DAY and I will poke at this devil little by little and keep working on overcoming it. As for other issues in my life…..Well….There’s other lessons to be learned…..

(When I saw this Daily Prompt, I thought of this song by Carrie Underwood…wonderful lyrics!)

Lessons Learned

There’s some things that I regret,
Some words I wish had gone unsaid,
Some starts,
That had some better endings,
Been some bad times I’ve been through,
Damage I cannot undo.
Some things,
I wish I could do all all over again,
But it don’t really matter,
When life gets that much harder,
It makes you that much stronger,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were,
Lessons learned.

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
And everyday I wondered how I’d get through the night,
Every change, life has thrown me,
I’m thankful, for every break in my heart,
I’m grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned.

There’s mistakes that I have made,
Some chances I just threw away,
Some roads,
I never should have taken,
Been some signs I didn’t see,
Hearts that I hurt needlessly,
Some wounds,
That I wish I could have one more chance to mend,
But it don’t make no difference,
The past can’t be rewritten,
You get the life you’re given,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were,
Lessons learned.

And all the things that break you,
Are the things that make you strong!
You can’t change the past,
Cause it’s gone.
And you just gotta move on,
Because it’s all
Lessons learned.

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
From everyday I wondered how I’d get through the night,
From every change, life has thrown me.
I’m thankful, for every break in my heart,
I’m grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned,
Oh, some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned,
Lessons learned.
Lessons learned.

{February 10, 2011} When Home is no longer a refuge

This is The Real Sharon’s blog….not very many people actually know the REAL me, though. All the posts I have done in the past were indeed, a part of me but there’s still a lot more that I haven’t chosen to share with anyone.

The past couple of days I have done funny blogs because craziness and laughter is so much a part of me. The reason behind my craziness and laughter is not funny at all, though. Difficult times lead people to cover up the hurt by masking the way they really feel. Making people laugh keeps me from having to talk about serious things that hurt me deep. There are a few things in my life I have never written in a private journal or done a blog about. This post is about one of them.

Most people know about how I was made fun of in high school. If you don’t, you can go back and look through the few posts from last year where I talk about it. What they don’t know is that sometimes being at home away from school wasn’t much better.

From the time I was a young child through most of my teen years, I lived with my mom, dad and brother. My brother has been deaf since shortly after his birth. He was 10 years older than me so it was a couple years before my pre-teen years when he started to get interested in alcohol. When he would drink a lot, he would get really silly and crazy. I didn’t know what to think about that, but I would soon learn to prefer that.

The problem came when my brother would get really drunk and want to drive. My parents would then try to hide the keys and tell him no. The once silly drunk would then turn very angry, very violent. He would start picking stuff up and throw it across the room. He would hit on my parents and yell and scream. I was so scared he would hurt himself and/or my parents. I would try to call the cops and my mom would tell me not to cause she didn’t want my brother to go to jail. There were a lot of times where I would hide in my closet and cry and pray to God that he would calm down and fall asleep. That everything would just end. I dreaded the nights I would be awakened at 2 or 3 in the morning with the squealing tires, the yelling, the beeping of horns. That meant my brother was home and he was drunk. That meant the next day I would be going to school tired and depressed about the night before only to get made fun of and threatened. I just felt like my life was just one thing after another of pain.

I remember him hitting the kitchen pantry door so hard, he made a hole in it. The wall by the staircase has a hole covered by a picture now. What made it worse is that I could see the blood from where he hit things so hard, his fists bled. I saw him push my mother down to the ground. I saw my mom cry tears of pain, made worse because this was her only son hurting her. I saw my brother chase my dad through the front yard with a huge knife. I saw my best friend scared to death and crying when she just happened to be spending the night when he got home one night. I was so embarrassed that she saw that and I was also scared for her as well.

I took a Careers class at the high school I went to to finish early. Most of the kids at that school had tried drugs or alcohol before and they were literally dumbfounded that I hadn’t. They seemed to think drinking was cool, but I didn’t. Of course I didn’t think it was cool. When people talk about it being cool, all I can think about is my brother and all the things I saw. They are like flashes in my head, flashing in and out, reminding me.

And it wasn’t just the anger that scared me. My brother overdosed on alcohol a few times and had to have his stomach pumped. He got into an accident once where he ran into a gas pump(can’t remember the exact word for it). His car turned off right after he ran into it. If it hadn’t, he would have died. Knowing that my brother almost died several times due to alcohol scared me to death. When people around me told their drunken stories of passing out and how to them, it was so funny, I couldn’t help but feel anger. Don’t they know what alcohol can do? Don’t they know my brother almost died several times due to it? Don’t they know my brother hurt my mommy and my daddy? Don’t they know my parents could have been severely injured or killed due to my brother thinking it’s FUN to drink?!

There are times still today, I get angry at people thinking it’s fun to drink. I don’t think drinking is something to be taken lightly. I admit that I have drank a few times in my life as an adult, but I honestly don’t care for it much. It doesn’t taste good to me. A hangover is not fun and what’s the point? To me, it’s not worth it. I know a big reason that I will never take drinking as something fun the way others my age do is always going to be because of my past experience. What happened will ALWAYS be in the back of my mind, every second of every day.

My brother is now married and he hasn’t drank in years. It’s been probably a decade since any of this happened and I am so thankful he finally stopped. I hope to God when I have kids someday, I can tell them a part of my story and it will make them NOT want to make the same mistakes he did. I hope this does not become something that is hereditarily passed on.

I know not everyone reacts the same to alcohol but I think everyone that drinks should take a look at the reasons behind it and realize if they’re well founded or not. I don’t want to see anybody I love and those they love lost to alcohol related accidents. I love you all!

{January 26, 2011} Into each life, some rain must fall

Ever since my post on Monday, this quote has been stuck in my head. Stuck on repeat like an old fashioned record that got hung up on the needle. All it did was rain all day on Monday and somewhere in the middle of me thinking about how you have to deal with Monday to get to the weekend and the rain to get to the rainbow, I just had this quote pop in my head. I finally wrote it in my new Thought book last night and I decided I would look it up online and find out where did this quote originate from?

I found out it has been used several times but the place I think it probably originated from first was a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “The Rainy Day”.

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

What a beautiful poem! I know there’s a lot of depressing words used in it, but the verse “Behind the clouds is the sun still shining” is such an inspirational verse to me.

“Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall”…Such beauty found in such truth. In the midst of all your struggles and hardships in life, you must remember that you’re never alone. To go through difficult times is a common thing, shared by people the whole world over. No one is spared from it. I know there are sometimes where you look at others and their life seems so wonderful, they seem to have it all and nothing bad ever seems to happen to them. I don’t believe that is true, though. Some people are better at hiding the pain and the struggles behind closed doors and the outward exterior looks so beautiful and intriguing and you start to turn green with envy. It’s important to remember that old phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover” at that moment. Just as a boring cover may hide an incredibly wonderful treasure inside, so must we realize that the most beautiful cover in the world can hide the ugliest, most horrible tales we have ever known.

Into my life and into your life, some rain must fall; sometimes your life can feel like it’s holding so much rain that you will drown in it. Sometimes you may actually feel like you have already drowned and you’re trying to swim back to the top and break through to the surface. I can relate. I’ve been there before and I’m sure I will again, we all have been there or will one day. Sometimes the rain seems like it will never stop, that this journey is endless but it helps to remember, at least for me, that others have been where you’ve been.

Another quote comes to my mind now and I’m not sure where it originated but it correlates well with this post. ”To reach the top of the hill, you have to have made it through the valley”. You can’t skip over the tough stuff and go right to the good. Even if you could, would it be worth it, really? I know at times, I am tempted to say, yes, it would be worth it. The hardships make the good times so much sweeter, though. If life was just great and marvelous 24/7, wouldn’t we take advantage of it? Wouldn’t we forget to be thankful for the good and rejoice over it?

Maybe, just maybe there IS a purpose for everything that happens in our lives. Maybe we are meant to face the rain so that we are better able to appreciate the sun that shines through afterwards.

I have a lot of friends and family that are going through a lot right now and in their lives, more rain is falling than I feel like they deserve in their life but I want them to remember to keep a look out for the sun. The sun is coming to brighten up your cold and dreary days and you are not alone.

My friends and family are MY rainbow after the storm

P.S. A friend of my mother-in-law’s has a son that recently fell down some stairs and he is in really bad shape. He has a wife and 3 kids that love him and from what I have read through posts on Facebook, he is doing good sometimes and then bad again. A friend created a group on Facebook for him and his mother to get more people all over to pray for him and his family but they will also be leaving it open to pray for others as well. I am going add a link on my post for this group and if you believe in praying at all, I hope that you will be led to join this group and add yourself to the many others who are praying for them. I do not know them personally but I feel for them and their family and I would love to help out by spreading the word to bring more prayers for them.

Prayers for Tom & Tammy.

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