My Life is Worse than Yours

I have to apologize to all of you who listened to me over the last few years whine and complain about my life.  I really, really tried to look at the bright side, but it was really difficult to do that.  I tried to find the lessons I was learning in the challenges I was facing and I tried to find the positive.  When blogging on "Adventures in Single Parenting", I hope that if you were a reader, my posts weren't too depressing. I know some of them were, but I hope you also found the humor that I did in single parenting.  I tried to look at all that I was going through as a positive experience or an experience I could learn from even when times were very, very tough.

However, most of the time over the last few years, whenever I heard others complain about their husbands, their jobs or their overactive kids, I thought in my mind, "You have nothing to complain about.  You could be living my life.  Both of my parents are dead, I'm an only child, I'm single and raising two very active young boys all by myself with NO relief, EVER!  My life is worse than yours and you don't have a clue how good you've got it."  Yep, I'm not proud of it and I may have even had those thoughts about you.  Isn't it funny how when we are going through trials or even when we are just having difficult times, life can be all consuming and it seems like no one has ever had it as bad as we've had it ever!

We love to blame other people and other situations for our unhappiness, when in reality life just happens.  Things that truly are horrible happen to good people and bad equally.  Sometimes, your circumstances are the results of your decisions, but sometimes they are not.  Sometimes life just plain STINKS, it's HARD, it's AWFUL and when someone complains about their circumstances and they don't seem as hard as yours, it can make you ANGRY... and bitter... and question...  why me?  why is this MY life?  This isn't what I planned or expected?  It's not FAIR!!!  I deserve more!!  But, do you?  Did I?  Life is tough for everyone.  Why should I be spared pain and sorrow?  Because I'm the center of the universe, that's why?  And guess what? Everyone else feels like they are the center of their universe too.  And guess what?  No one really is the center of anyone else's universe.

I finally came to the realization that life can stink and be horrible,  I am NOT the center of everyone else's universe and everyone else in the world does not view ME as the center of their universe.  I have come to the conclusion that no one's life is any better, worse, more valuable, less valuable, more precious, more special, more worthless or more horrible than mine.  We just all go through our peaks and valleys at different times and some people have more peaks than others and some have wider and deeper valleys.

Right now, I am on a mountaintop.  I am as happy as I've ever been, but I need to remember that there are others going through various trials right now.  My happiness may actually be causing them pain because what I have may remind them of what they do not have.  If I can remember my pain and use it to help others than I will be a better person for it and I will have had a purpose for all that I've gone through.  Instead of looking back at my trials as a horrible, painful time that had no purpose, I can see the reason I went through it all.  If I can reach out to others that are in the valleys and lend a helping hand, a sympathetic ear or an empathetic heart, then may trials were for a greater meaning and next time I go through a trial, I can look at it as an opportunity to grow.

So, if you are going through a trial right now, my heart goes out to you.  Please be brave and courageous, reach out to others, get the help and support you need, but most importantly, know that this trial is for a season.  Soon you will be again on the top of the mountain, breathing the fresh, crisp air and looking at how beautiful the world is.  Hang in there and use this time to learn and grow.  And, when you get onto the mountaintop and you are looking around at the beauty of the world, remember that those that are in the shadows of the valley can't see more than a few feet in front of them because of the valley they are in.  If you can, be the beauty of the world for them.  Shine your light on them through your kind words and acts.  Don't complain about your circumstances, but instead, ask them about how their life is, what their needs are and what you can do to help them.  Then, lend a hand, lend an ear, lend a shoulder or a pair of arms to hold them through their trials.  By doing this, you will lift them up and will help them to see that even in darkness, the world is still beautiful.

What's in a name?

So...  I promised to tell you how I came up with the new name.  When I started Adventures in Single Parenting, the title of the blog pretty much reflected my theme.  I wanted to share with the world the adventures I was having with my children as a single mom as well as the lessons I was learning from the world, my kids and my circumstances.  Single Parenting was easily the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.  I am sooooo grateful for that time and that experience.  It taught me a lot and makes me appreciate what I have right now so much.

That brings me to where I am now.  I am remarried.  I married Kevin this summer after a brief courtship.  I had been single for 2 years and I knew what I was looking for in a husband, mate and partner.  He fulfilled everything on my list and more.  He is my rock, my best friend, an amazing partner, an incredible dad to his kids and a great father figure to my boys.  Not to mention that he is drop dead gorgeous!!!  But not only that, I truly believe we were meant to be together.  We have so much in common that it is sort of creepy sometimes.  First of all, we love sports, especially football and basketball.  I have always been a huge sports freak thanks to my dad.  I truly was the son he never had in many ways.  Some of my fondest memories are watching football with my dad on Sunday afternoon.  Kevin shares the same love.  He loves photography, is a tech geek and loves working with people.  There is so much more we share, but those are the highlights.  It's wonderful to be with someone who shares the same interests as you.

We have some other things in common that are just plain weird.  His birthday is the same date as my grandmothers and my birthday was only one day off from my grandfather's, so we share the same dates pretty much as my grandparents did.  We finish each other's sentences.  When we were first texting (Yes, we texted for a long time before we met face to face), we used to text each other the exact same thing at the same time.  We both like the toilet paper to hang down from the top and we've both had similar experiences in our lives with other people.

So here's where the name comes in.  Kevin is from Texas and coincidentally, Joey was born very close to where Kevin used to live.  Kevin was brought up with fields of Bluebonnets in the spring.  When we re-branded our photography business, we decided to call it "Bluebonnet Imaging".  It made me smile when I looked online at a picture of a bluebonnet and realized that it looked an awful lot like a lupine.  As a matter of fact, they are in the same family.  I was raised with lupines surrounding me every summer.  So there you have it.  It's that simple.  Even though we were born and raised hundreds of miles apart, our lives are very similar.  We are really just different versions of one another with some minor differences, but yet, still pretty much the same.  It truly is amazing how a boy from Texas and a girl from Maine could be brought together, but we were.

What's New?? A LOT!!!!

Since I last blogged, my life has completely and totally changed for the better (or you could say for better or for worse).  Yes, for those of you that don't know, I got married this summer, hence the name change from "Adventures in Single Parenting" to my new blog titled "Bluebonnets and Lupines".

For a woman who had her life pretty much out there for the entire world to see and read about, I went into blog silence for several months for many reasons.  I'm sorry to have disappointed my followers and to have left you wondering about what happened to me, but I had many reasons that I didn't blog through my courtship and marriage.  The first reason is that I was crazy and insanely busy with my life. When I was single parenting, many of my blogs were written after the kids went to bed.  I am the type of person that needs people.  Just like the Barbara Streisand song says, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world."  However, when you are a person who needs people and the only people that are around are your two sleeping children, it can be a lonely existence.  By blogging, I felt like I was connecting with others even when I was sitting in my bed by myself.  Therefore, many of my blogs were created in the quiet of the evening when I needed to process my feelings and the events of the day.  Once I became involved in a relationship, my evenings were filled with that companionship that I had been seeking.  Please don't take offense, but having a real person to talk to, bounce ideas off of, vent, cry with and laugh with is greatly superior to blogging in silence.

Next, both the new hubby and I are divorced.  There are other people involved in our lives and I really did not feel it was in good form to be publishing my happiness for the world to read about when I knew in some way our actions were causing pain for others in our lives.  I'm not saying we did anything wrong by getting remarried.  We did not cheat on our exes and we did not seek one another out to purposely cause pain for them.  However, having been on the end of the stick where I got to witness someone in my life "move on" before I was ready to move, I knew first hand how painful it could be.  I knew that splashing my joy all over blogger or Facebook would not help anyone's healing process.  Yes, there will always be pain involved in divorce.  Divorce stinks.  Divorce is the gift that keeps on taking no matter how long you've been divorced or whether or not you've moved on, it hurts, it stings, it STINKS!  I'm trying all I can do NOT to increase the pain of the other's in our lives, but no matter what I do, just the nature of divorce is going to cause pain.  Even in my happiness and joy, there are many days that I'm still sad my life and my children's lives did not turn out as I envisioned them.

I am finally at a point where I would love to share some of the events that are happening in my life and with the kids.  I'd love to share some of my insights, some of what I've learned and continue to learn.  Most importantly, I would love to keep blogging so my kids have a record of my life.  My mom kept diaries her whole life.  I can go back and read about the day I was born, the day President Reagan was shot, the day I lost my first tooth.  I'm not as diligent about blogging as my mom was about her diary, but I want to leave the same kind of record for my kids so they knew who I was and what I felt strongly about.  I have learned so much about my mother by reading about her life.  My desire is for my kids to truly know who I was as a person through this blog.

Tomorrow... how did I come up with the new name, you ask??  Come back tomorrow to find out.  :)