New Year... New Me!

As the New Year approaches, I think about what I've learned over the last year... and what I haven't yet learned. Having a very bad childhood (well, really, no childhood at all) definitely has had its effect on me! Some of the effect has been very "negative" and also very "positive." On one hand, I have absolutely no idea where or how I learned how to "go" in the world. I can't remember my mother ever teaching me anything. My father did some sports stuff with me, but pretty much everything I did and WAS, was not acceptable to them. Nothing was ever good enough or deserved praise or support.

I was literally and figuratively abandoned by them at a very young age and pretty much had to raise myself. Having my daughter, in many ways, was my "childhood." I LOVED being a mother. Cristina is also so easy to love, so lovable, so enjoyable. While I was very responsible, we also played a lot. I can get and be REALLY silly! We wrestled, and ran around together, I swung on the swing, see sawed on the see saw, played silly games (which Cristina always won) climbed the monkey bars, giggled a lot, took long walks. Cristina was the most fun person to be around. She was the perfect combination of loving to play, and also listening to adult/friends talking. I feel very blessed to be her mom.

It's like everything my parents did, I did the opposite. Now I need to learn to take pride in myself, know that I deserve contentment, that I am unconditionally loved and that I'm really quite a great person! Not pay attention to the "demons" in my head that are always there, intruding in the present, making me feel like that abandoned child I WAS!

But that was then... this is NOW! It's just to LIVE it!