Just Me!! The Butterfly effect

Sometimes it seems the harder you strive the father away the thing you are striving for becomes. When we are young we think the grown up world holds all the answers to the questions, all the remedies to make life the way we want it to be.

The magic world of adulthood, I have to admit that I longed to be 'grown up' mainly so I could leave the stifling and not very pleasent life I led. Adulthood didnt dissapoint me as I had no illusions about it, it did surprise me however. Discovering a whole new world where people were actually pleasent to each other, spoke to each other even when they didn't have to, amazing!

I didnt want my children to long for adulthood, I wanted them to enjoy their childhood, after all once it is gone and you enter the adult world you cant keep running to mummy when you scrape your knees ( Though someone needs to tell my lot that ) So I endeavoured to make their childhood as good as it could be with only me around to tend to everything.

I didnt do too bad a job, thought I say so myself, but,at trying to stop them becoming adults befoe time I failed miserably. My eldest left home at seventeen, my middle one at sixteen, the boy has left twice and come back, now he is gone again.

I didnt stand in thir ways, though I didnt want them to go, trying to stop them is the sure way to make them go. I made sure that they always knew that the door was there when they needed it, they have all come back at some point, and then gone again.

I know its my fault, I made them too independant, I taught them all how to cook, sew, wash etc etc, but after the health scare, I had to make sure that if anything happened to me they could fend for themselves. Which they can, and I am pleased that they can. Just miss them sometimes.

Though saying that the peace and quiet is heaven

All the time I was growing up and since becoming an adult, I have always used observation as one of my greatest aids in assessing people and events.

When I was young observation of the people around me kept me alert to changes in mood, temperament, made me aware of safe times and times I had to be wary of what I said and how it was said and what I did. I learnt the times that I could ask to go out and play in the sunshine and be allowed to do so, and the times when asking would have no effect, but getting the little ones to make a noise or play up would result in being told to take them out to play.

I learnt that it didn't matter if you were older and in many ways wiser, if you were not a boy, you were nothing, your thoughts were nothing your opinions worthless and your aspirations the dreams and flights of fancy of a mere girl, they meant nothing they would amount to nothing.

But I learnt something else in the midst of all my observations as I grew, holding on to those dreams, keeping faith even when there is no way that you could ever see them coming true, no chance of acheiving the things you desired as a child, being true to yourself, the person inside, is the most important thing. It will bring you through when all else fails.

Walking beneath a canopy of snow white blossoms, enjoying the first light of the day, listening to the birds chatter and sing and call to one another, happy in the knowledge that they have survived another night, breathing the fresh morning air, being me, being free.

I no longer have to ask permission to wander in the sunshine, I no longer have to yearn to stand beneath the stars, and I wonder sometimes if I had not had to do these things would I appreciate them so much now? Would I still find every sunrise and every sunset as glorious, if not more so than the last one? Would I still gaze in wonder at the brilliant colours that blaze across the sky each morning and each night? Still find wonder in every new shoot, and bud that blossoms?

Sometimes it takes not having what you should to appreciate it all the more when you finally manage to get it.