I always find it interesting how people, me included have such deep rooted opinions on how things should be done of which we have no real knowledge. I admittedly know nothing about politics, I do not watch the news and didn’t even know hurricane Katrina had happened until my friend called and forced me to put the tv on and see what was happening in the world. And yet, I have opinions on who should run the world, how the news should be presented; what they should say, how they should say it and of course on the weather itself. Everyone had an opinion on how I should be handeling my children. Somewhere in my lifetime I went from single parent to my life being a group effort. It was based on popular opinion and seemed to always be up for discussion. Especially for those that were removed from my situation and wanted to play Monday-morning quarterback. Now we all know that no matter how much we know, how educated we are or how much wisdom we can muster all of us are making the best of our own screwed up situations. We are learning as we go, sometimes based on experience, sometimes shooting from the hip. No one tells you that when you become an adult no matter what you do…you still have no idea what you’re doing. We are aged teenagers, still feeling insecure, still fighting our own battles, still learning about ourselves every day. Any one who claims any different is either lying to you or lying to themselves. Along the very twisty, bumpy road of my parenting career I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I was, I am a good mom. It took me a long time to realize that. To seperate myself from my children’s choices and stop beating myself up. I taught them as best I could, I raised them with a sense or morals, ethics, spirituality and a conscious. And yet they don’t always do things in the way I would do them or in a way in which I hoped they would. Their decisions are not a product of my parenting to some respect. They are individuals and when I finally realized they were their own person, I could seperate myself from blame and start doing what needed to be done. I was about to embark on some of the hardest decisions of my life and I was going to have to dig deep. Really deep to muster up the strength to make those hard choices. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I was sure I had the right support on my side and if I didn’t I’d find new ones. This went on for months and not one day went by where I wasn’t holding my breath. There was no end in sight, there was no solace in knowing I was doing the best I could. What there was were opinions. Circling my head like those birds did in cartoons. Tweeting incessantly. Never letting up. Always letting me know along the way that no matter how hard I tried, how much I did, whatever I gave was never going to be right. Never going to be good enough. And I would have to figure out a way to silence the chatter cause I had bigger issues to deal with.