We have finally made it to the final leg of my journey, thus far.
So far, my daughter and I have moved from Georgia to Maryland, then to North Carolina. We moved out of my grandmother's house and into an apartment, then into a house. I have had a few boyfriends, but stayed basically single for 6 years.
It didn't take long after moving into my house to fall in love with it, even with all of it's quirks. It didn't have enough insulation, needed new windows, and after our first summer there, the air conditioning condenser unit broke. But, it was mine. I had to mow the yard, but I also got to sit on the front porch and enjoy the smell of the fresh cut grass. I had to keep up repairs and bills, but I also got to take credit for everything.
The first two months in my house were hard. We had moved to a different city and my daughter still attended school in our old city, plus, I worked in a third city. My day consisted of a lot of driving until school let out for the summer. Then, I had the joy of find a suitable daycare in my new city. Daycare has always been a hard hurdle to cross. Alyssa was a good child and hardly ever got into trouble, but the bill was never ending and way too large. But I paid it.
Shortly after moving into our new home, I switched jobs again, but this time it came with a large raise in pay. And that was a good thing too, I never would have thought that owning a house could be so much more expensive than renting. Alyssa and I had it rough. Alyssa hated spaghetti, but it was a very cheap meal and we often had to eat it. Money was tight, but we made it work.
After a while, I started dating someone. It wasn't always easy, but he appeared to get along with my daughter and I really wanted someone in my life. After six months, though, he told me that my daughter got on his nerves! Needless to say, that was the end of him! No matter how I tried to forgive him and make it work. That effectively ended our relationship.
Shortly after the end of that relationship, I met the man that was to become my husband. We fell in love quickly, too quickly. It was really a whirlwind romance. Only a month or two into the relationship we started talking about marriage and having children together. We started looking at rings and at houses. At six months, we got engaged and less than two months later, we were married.
When I met my husband, he was still in the middle of a divorce and had a three year old daughter of his own. I fell in love with his daughter and treated her as my own. My future husband had a seemingly good relationship with my daughter and we seemed to mesh as a family.
Unfortunately, things aren't always what they seem...
Less than a month after my husband and I met, I lost my job. Whether it was due to the economy or to the problems in the firm that I was working at, or whether it was something I did, I'll never really know. I was asked to resign. That was a year and a half ago. But, my future husband and I moved on with our plans.
Like I said, within a month or so, we were talking marriage and even looking at rings and houses. It was everything that I had wanted (marriage, children, and a nice house.) We planned to put a house on his property, but we were going to live in my house until then. We talked of having at least one more child, hopefully a boy. And I thought that our future was pretty much mapped out...
Then, just a few short months later, he changed his mind and decided that we were to live at his house, a house that neither of us owned. After a while, I relented and agreed to live there. It made sense since our lives had been made in his town, with his daughter's visitation, church, his work, and gymnastics. I wanted to make things work with him, I wanted all that we had talked about, so I started making sacrifices.
We moved into “his” house, I transferred my daughter to the school that he taught at, and I became a stay-at-home-mom to his daughter and mine. I drove every day to drop off and pick up his little girl from preschool. I spent hours at home with her, and I loved it! I got to be there when my daughter got home from school and help with homework.
I did all of this until my herniated lumbar disc made it unbearable to walk. At that point, I expected my husband to step in and he did. He was great at keeping our family fed, but my poor daughter had to step in a lot my than I wanted. At eight years old, she was amazing! She kept up with the laundry for a four person family and even took on a lot of the dish washing responsibilities. But that still didn't appear to be enough to earn my husband's love. We have had sever arguments over his preferential treatment of his daughter. It would have been so bad if it was just a little, but he would love and snuggle and cuddle with his daughter, but barely recognize that mine was around and these arguments continue...
But, anyways, back to my story...My littlest one, my step daughter, helped out with the dusting while I was incapacitated. But I was forced to let go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. The house wasn't always as clean as I wanted it and I was embarrassed to let others come over, but we all made it through happy and healthy.
Within a few months, I had back surgery and was up and about. Two days after surgery, I could barely walk again, but that had nothing to do with my back. I was so excited to be up and about that I wore out my poor decrepit leg muscles! From that point on, I have been able to walk and I am truly thankful for that!
The last 9 months that I spent at home, I cooked and cleaned. I helped with homework and stayed with sick kids. I did laundry and scrubbed toilets. But under all the work, I was able to be home when my girls got home from school. I was able to spend the summer with them. I was able to make my children a priority and I loved it! I tried to make my husband a priority too.
As hard as it was, I loved being a stay-at-home-mom. Don't get me wrong, I continued to look for work, but there was very little promising response and for a total of a year and a half, I was unable to get a job. Until last month. Now I am back at work in a law office and I love it! I love feeling like I am worth something! Believe it or not, many stay-at-home-moms feel worthless. Because they don't earn a paycheck, they feel like a secondary citizen and that was me. I felt like I owed my husband something because he “brought home the bacon.” I felt like everything was supposed to be his way because he earned the money. Since he earned it, he should be able to do what he wanted with it, right?
Wrong! Don't let yourself get caught in that trap! What you provide for your family is worth a lot more than a paycheck! The love that you give, the time that you give, and the way that you are available for your family is priceless. Yes, your family could not survive without that paycheck, but they also could not survive without you. You are the glue that holds your family together! Don't sit back and feel that you are not worth anything because you don't have a lot in your bank account! You count and your bills count!
Continued from: Part Two
No comments:
Post a Comment