I Am

I am the baby born in California to an alcoholic and his tired thin wife, who was the cherished only girl and the spoiled baby sister whose big brothers protested when she was punished.

I am the child who played doctor in the back room and hide and seek without being found and caught ping pong balls with my face for my brothers; who loved dressing my kittens in baby clothes and sitting on my grandma's soft lap and could read 4th grade books before kindergarden; who stored a tattered blue blankie in my treasure box. I am the child who dreamed of parents that didn't fight and never thought she would always feel at fault when they did.
I am the teenager who smoke and drank and listened to loud hard music; who wore tight jeans and high heeled boots and loved every guy who said he loved me back and hated every guy who lied. The teenager who climbed out the bedroom window and then didn't have anywhere to go, who dreamed of just getting away and knew she would...someday.

I am the woman who married too young and tried too hard and had to quit, the woman who started all over again and got it right. The woman who loves my husband and my children and God.

I am the mother who loves with passion and goes crazy if I have to witness my children's pain and whose moments of perfect bliss come when I am sitting in church between the man I love and the children we raise. I am the Doula and Educator who loves tender scrawny infants and their scared and weepy mothers, who avoids conflict and who tries so damn hard to do things right.

I am the woman who weeps in church, with joy and the woman who weeps during sappy commercials and old love songs. I am the person who loves with her heart on her sleeve and is afraid of hugging people and having them turn away. I am the woman who still loves childrens literature and preschool music but never learned to like Peanut Butter and Fluff, who still longs to learn to use her Big Girl Voice. I am the person who dreams of being better, and doing better, and is grateful for the Mercy and Grace of God and who hopes for her children to have the strong solid belief that their mother loves them in every way that they are.