I give up, Pt 2

I've often told friends and family members, especially young ones, that if you need to make changes in your life, if there's a lesson you need to learn and you're just not getting it, often you've got to reach rock bottom in order to start making changes in your life. Hitting rock bottom forces you to make those changes.

Consider me at rock bottom.

However, I think that my self confidence and self esteem levels are probably at least 6 feet below that point.

But, I am better than yesterday. Sort of.

Yesterday, I thought "God, is my life even worth living?"

Today my thoughts are "What makes my life worth living?"

Obvious answer would be the girls. They are my lifeline, my all in all, my very reason for breathing and living each day. They inspire hope, bring me waves of emotions consistantly, my literal saving grace.

Right now, this very moment, I sit and I want to give up everything. This is more than postpartum depression, this is a nagging thought that's been plaguing me for years. An admission to failure. To face the bald truth that I've failed in life, in my goals, in everything except being a mother. Somehow I still retain that one redeeming quality. I am a good mother, I know I am. I'm just not a good one right now I don't think. Because of my babies, I can't give up though there's no denying I want to... badly. Selfishness goes out when the door of parenthood opens (well, it should but I know that's not always the case). For me to forsake everything wouldn't be fair to them. It'd be like... like what my mother did to me. She didn't give up, but she rededicated her life to taking care of her needs and ONLY her needs. To this day she's still that way. But. Anyway.

So as I drove back down the interstate this morning I asked myself what makes life worth living, other than the girls? Um, not a goddamned thing? Yeah, I think that's it. Not one damned thing.

You know when I was pregnant with Jaalyn, I think I was about five months pregnant and I hadn't even discovered that she was in fact a girl, I was so depressed and so filled with anguish and despair that I actually found myself on the side of the bed staring at and eventually holding the large, shiny handgun baby daddy kept in his nightstand. I felt the weight of it in my hand, the coolness of it and was so tempted to pull the trigger and end all 23 years of my miserable existance. And then... the baby kicked me. HARD. Harder than she'd ever kicked. And I decided then and there that me ending my life wasn't fair to this child. This child that would probably survive even if I didn't. And the only two people that would be there to raise this child were to two people in my life causing all my misery: my mother and baby daddy. I put down the gun. I stroked my belly and burst into tears. But, once I'd cleaned my face I made changes instantly. I went to my father's job, waited for him to get off work and come out of the building to hug him and tell him I'd see him in a few months; that I was no longer keeping in contact with my mother or him for the remainder of the pregnancy, for my health and sanity and for the baby's health. I started with that first step and I went on from there.

After Jaalyn was born, again I stumbled and fell emotionally but I picked myself back up and what kept me going was my tiny infant that was dependant upon me. She gave me every reason to go on. I no longer mattered; she did. Period.

And here I am again, back to square one mentally and reevaluating my life's purpose. I am going out on a limb here but looking back... I was at my best mentally, spiritually and emotionally when I was alone, with my child. When my sole focus was my child. I think I've been trying too hard to encompass too many things and accomplish too many things. So I'm cutting off all other things and refocusing on my children. They give me pleasure. They provide everything I need on this earth. They do not let me down. They do not abandon me (yet). They love me unconditionally and I am and hopefully always will be number one in their life the same way they are in mine.

I have experienced so much for a reason. I have survived for a purpose.

I have survived molestation.

I have survived rape. Twice.

I have survived seeing my father beat the crap out of my mother, of having him hold a gun point blank in my face and threaten to pull the trigger if I did not move so he could kill my mother. (To this day memories of my mother's cries and screams, the abuse and the arguments haunt my dreams. As recent as this week.)

I have survived an abusive relationship.

I have survived multiple pregnancies, single motherhood, and miscarriage.

I have survived my husband not only abandoning me, but depleting my every financial resource when he did it.

I have survived financial devastation in every conceivable way possible whether it was by literally selling my ass to amatuer porn agencies for photos and videos, by becoming a well paid call girl (fuck, who am I kidding? I was a hooker that simply didn't have to stand on the corner, I took appointments over the phone), or by using my own wits to create a mini Ebay empire to sell every item I owned and every item my ex-husband left behind.

All this and more I have survived.

This too I shall overcome. Just need to regroup, refocus and reenergize.