Fear...

In my younger days, my fears about things were a lot different than now. I didn't cope well with "real life" things and my mind was always hovering 10 feet from where the rest of me was. The eternal dreamer. I feared "growing up" and losing the fun happy times of youth. The real life worries consisted of "Where am I going to hang out tonight?" and "Which t-shirt should I wear?"

Now a days, my fears and worries are not grounded in anything other than the fear of something happening to one of my children and the impact that it would have on me and what I would do to the individual or individuals who were responsible for perpetrating said harm to my cubs and whether I'd be able to come back from that after I did. My fears revolve around the future and what it holds. Not in that "dread and doom" kind of way, but the "I hope I can do right by my children..." kind of way. Most of my worries are now based in the solid foundations of reality and something beyond the "right here and right now". Gone are the days when I worried about what now seem so trivial and stupid. How weird, because at the time, they seemed so important.

It's weird the kind of things we'll endure for our kids. All variety of bodily fluids and not so fluids, sleepless nights, frustrations, heartbreak, worry, the overwhelming desire to take away their pain when they hurt or feel sad. All things a I didn't think I was going to be able to deal with, but here I am, a four time mom and although every day brings it's own set of challenges, I meet and greet them and deal.

My youngest starts school next fall leaving me the time to decide where to work. And I thought I'd be a little apprehensive about it all, but the reality is, I'm pretty excited to move forward into the "next phase". Go figure!