Final Count Down!

Here it is already March and My oldest will be graduating in May. I'm so excited! I know that a lot of mom's dread having their children grow up and leave, but it's that the reason we raised them? To grow up, leave home, and make their own way in this world.

I know I did a good job raising her. She's a good kid with excellent grades, no  record, (not even a ticket) and she has good friends. My only concern...screwing up and marring the wrong guy, like I did.

My first marriage was awful. He was abusive, mean, controlling, the list is long. I being the spitfire I was and still am, definitely added to an already tumultuous relationship. But with years of therapy, I learned it's never okay to hit a spouse.

The current question that's plagued me,  when it's self defense is it considered abuse?

In my first marriage I never hit him first, but after a year into it I got tired of being slapped, pushed, shoved against walls and spit at. So I started to fight back. First with words, than with my fist.

Of course the abuse grew worse and I felt trapped, until he grew bored and found another girl who was willing to take his crap. At first I was hurt, but quickly realized my prayers had been answered and I had a way out of my personal hell.

It was thrilling to find myself. I was not the same person I had once been, but I found a new me. A much stronger me, a girl who believed in true love and a woman who was able to take care of her children with or without a man by my side.

During that time I healed. I learned about myself. The me who'd been stripped away little by little, first by how I was allowed to dress, then by what I was allowed to do, and finally how I was allowed to act. He manipulated me taking pieces of me bit by bit until I had no idea who I was any more. And I willingly gave it to him, because I thought love was about sacrifice.(Yea, I know, it sounds pathetic.)

I needed to rediscover my likes and dislikes and find happiness again. One thing I learned about myself, I love sunsets. In my tiny two bedroom apartment on the wrong side of town I found pleasure in watching sunsets. Many evenings I sat on the front balcony, of that cold cement building watching the sunset in Concord, California. I loved it.

Sometimes I would go to my bedroom and watch the colors dance across the wall, highlighted by the shadow of a large oak tree which swayed back and forth. I slowly found peace in the that low income, nineteen fifties style apartment.

I know my daughter's smarter than I ever was at that time, but I think part of parenting is that we sometimes transfer our own fears onto our children. So chances are she's learned more from my mistake than I did. My real fear isn't that she won't get divorced or go through a bad relationship or two, but that she'll be unhappy.

Isn't that worse to a parent than anything; watching our children in pain?