Something I wrote one time

I was looking through some old stuff and came across this thing that I totally forgot I wrote.  I'm pretty good at writing stuff like papers for school, but I can almost never express myself the way I want to when I'm trying to talk about myself.  I wrote this one back when I had just started school again because I was pre-stressing about essays for grad school and was trying to get better at the writing-about-myself thing.  And just now when I read over it again, I was like, hey, I like this!  I like how I'm not even really trying to make a point, just writing about myself and actually managing to say what I want to say. So I'm going to be brave and share it.

March 20, 2010

I like my story. The story of me and my life and the way things have come together. So I'll try to tell it.
My childhood was nothing spectacular, but it was a spectacular childhood. Simple, fun, free, and safe. A small town, a big family, a church that meant something to me, schools that made me feel smart. I was shy, but not painfully so. Sometimes I was lonely, but usually I had friends.
My life divides nicely between childhood and adolescence, because I moved when I was eleven. Our new town was a little bit bigger, and pretty soon I found a few amazing friends who would be the main source of my adolescent happiness. Life continued just as great as it had started, but a little bigger and a little better.
I almost didn't leave home after high school. At one point I made the decision (after very little thought) to stay home and go to the local college, because I didn't want to leave my family. But then my two best friends started making their big college plans, and I realized that staying home meant being left behind. I needed to go and have my own adventure.
Growing up, I only ever had one aspiration: to be a mother. Other careers seemed interesting now and then, and I knew that eventually I'd have to find one, but the only thing I knew I truly wanted was a family. At that point I wanted to be a writer. I could stay home with my kids and write books. I started out in college as an English major.
I was completely surprised when I met my future husband at the tender age of 18. I had hardly dated at all in high school. I was shy around boys, and they never really seemed interested in me. When the first guy I seriously dated wanted to marry me, I had to take some time to make sure I wasn't just jumping at the chance because it presented itself.
My first child was born 9 months and 4 days after I got married. Three more followed in quick succession. We almost didn't have the fifth. My husband surprised me one evening after we'd gone on a walk when he told me he thought it might be time to stop having kids. We'd always planned on around 8 kids, but his health was failing. He was worried.
We did have that fifth one, but then we were done. His health got worse, and life started to change. He was able to work less and less, then finally not at all. It was time for me to go back to school. I was thrilled. I had always enjoyed school and had only done part of my freshman year before marriage and babies took precedence.
I didn't go back to English though. The book writing had never panned out as I'd hoped. The exciting fictional stories I wrote in high school paled and faded in comparison to the real life I was leading. This was another surprise. Life was certainly not exciting as a wife and mommy. It was often mundane, tiring, boring, lonely, frustrating. There was no adventure to it. Yet somehow there was. I got married. I joined my life to that of an amazing, talented, complex man who challenged me and loved me fiercely. I became pregnant. I watched a life grow inside me and emerge as the most beautiful little creature I'd ever set eyes on. Then together we watched her grow and change and exude adorableness every day. The need I felt to repeat this experience was intense, and the joy I felt when I learned of my second pregnancy was a thousand times greater than when I'd learned of my first. Because now I knew exactly what I had to look forward to.
And life kept going. And I met people, and talked to people, and learned about people. And I struggled daily with my temper, my impatience, my abhorrence of housework, the intricacy and confusion of parenting. And I watched my sisters get married and start having kids, and I relished my bond with them. And I learned about the struggles of marriage. The monumental task of melding two lives into one, combined with the sheer comfort of sharing the burden of life with your favorite person.
And then one day a friend told me I should be a therapist. She didn't even say it because she knew me and saw that potential in me. She barely knew me at all. She only said it because she was a therapist, and she loved it so much, and wanted others to experience what she was.
But it got me thinking.
If there's anything that I've learned it's that life is hard, and the only thing that gets us through, makes it better, makes it worthwhile, makes it sometimes amazing, is other people. No book or object or idea can get you through a hard time like another person can.
Life is hard. Life is scary and painful. Everyone has hidden pain, everyone has a hidden strength. We make mistakes constantly, we're all terrible at communicating. We're all needy and broken and unstable. At least sometimes. And we all need help sometimes. And I like the idea of being able to help.