When I was younger I used to think life was so hard. My mom made me clean my room just because it was dirty and it wasn't enough that I just gathered up all the junk and threw it either under my bed or in the closet. Then when I got a job, they made me pay $20 a week from my $40 a week job. By the way as the jobs got better, so did the rent increase! I used to always say that when I tuned 18 I was moving out. Why should I have to pay rent at home, they are the ones that chose to have kids, I mean damn-don't charge us!
I smile thinking about those days because now the tables are reversed. I hear myself saying things to my kids that my parents used to say and my kids in turn are saying things that me and my siblings used to say. I fight all the time with my daughter to clean her room, put away her clothes and things that every mother fights with their daughter about. If your kids are under eight years old and you think they are the sweetest kids ever, just wait, it is almost guaranteed that they will become typical kids complaining about how hard they have it. If my kids are without their cell phones for an hour, it becomes the most devaststing thing in the world to them and I hear them pleading with me that they need it and to please give it back, they even promise they will do anything to get it back. It's kind of comical to me. When we were in school and needed to use the phone we went to the office.
Kids don't know how easy they have it, until they grow up. Like my daughter tells me, I used to also tell my parents that I was going to live with them forever, that was before I was a teenager though because then I couldn't wait to get the heck out. I had it all planned out. I was going to get a good job, find a nice little apartment, find love and live a fairytale, then reality happened.
I look back on all the things that seemed so hard when I was younger. Oh how I would give anything just to pay $20 for rent and no utilities. The worries that we had as kids diminish and seem to only grow into bigger worries. I remember growing up how my mom used to worry about things I didn't care about back then. Her and my dad would fight about money and bills and I always secretly thought that my mom was a nag and she should just leave my dad alone. Again, I laugh. I have become the nag magnified by ten that my mother was. At times I am jealous at those women whose husbands take care of everything. Any money that the woman makes they get to keep for themselves. It wasn't the case for my mom and it sure is not the case for me.
As little girls we are handed books where Prince Charming comes to the rescue and takes care of the Princess forever. What we are not told is that in a lot of cases, us women ARE Prince Charming and we are the ones that end up taking care of things. We worry about how things will get done and paid and we are forced to worry about our tomorrows instead of enjoying our todays and we sit there wishing for yesterday. Because women are wired to be the ones to worry, we are labeled as nags or the word that rhymes with snitches. It just doesn't seem fair. Life is so complicated and seems so hard, even newborns aren't happy and think life is complicated. I mean here they were all nice and snug and warm in your stomach and then all too soon they are pushed out into this world where they will only think gets harder with each new day.
There are people who go through their whole life on easy street. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and cry. I thimk that my life could be so many kinds of better, but yet the complications of it all keep me in the place in my life I am now. I count on my tomorrows to bring me brighter rainbows, but sometimes all I find are rain clouds. Nothing is ever promised to us and this thing called life is a challenge. I try to be a good person and do the best I can for my kids and just pray to God they don't resent me for the choices I have made or continue to make, and I pray that they will come out of their childhoods ok. I think of the song my dad used to sing..."Raindrops are fallin on my head". Though there are sometimes raindrops I have to remember the rest of the song...
Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me
Yes life may be complicated but we have to remember that even on what seems like our darkest days, it's never too long before the sun will shine again.
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