A Series of Thoughts: Growing up

This is very random but it's my current series of thoughts.  Enjoy and be kind.

I am 34...34 and in a couple months I'll be 35 but most the time when I visualize myself I still feel like the scared motherless child, who was fighting to find herself in this world.  Then one day I looked up and here I find myself a married woman and mother of 2 little girls. How did that happen?

It's amazing how time and growing up works.  Internally, I feel like I'm a child raising children but I know that I'm not a child.  Did my parent feel like this when they had 5 girls and a boy to raise?  Did they look around them and think that they were children just like those they were raising?  My mother started having kids in her mid 20s...I didn't have my first daughter until I was 30 and yet I don't feel grow up yet.  Will I ever feel grown up? Now the big question...do I want to feel grown up?

Life has a funny way of just moving forward whether you are ready or not.  Thankfully, God knows what he's doing and what you can do with his help because sometimes I look at what I've been through and what I have accomplished and wonder...how did I make it and what was I thinking?  We often move through life from one event to the next but when you are living your day to day life, it feels like you are just passing the time.  How does all this life happen when you are just passing the time?

My mother passed away 28 year ago today and I miss her every day.  It's strange to think that I have lived on this earth 22 years longer without her than with her.  I know she is with me everyday and I'm reminded of her through my sisters and my daughters.  God knew what he was doing when he gave my parents 5 girls.  He knew what he was doing when he gave me daughters.  He knows what we need more than we do because he sees the bigger picture that we do not.

I often struggle with my longing for my mother.  I'm the person I am today because I lost her when I did.  I had to grow up without her and I gained her influences through the lessons and influences she left in those that knew her.  I know her through pictures and stories that others tell me.  I was the youngest of many and I was spoiled rotten before she passed.  After she passed, people came into my life that changed that.

I often wonder if my sisters and I would be so close if we had not lost her when we did.  Would we need each other as much as we do now?  I can't imagine my life without each of my sisters.  We are all so different yet we are all so similar.  We fight like all siblings but there is something different about how we relate.  It's like there is this magnet that pulls us to each other and you can't see it but it's there.  Is that magnet our mother's spirit?  Will my girls have that magnet too?

My husband and I in the last year have talked several times about moving to live near his family up north.  I want to say I could do it because despite how I see myself, I'm not a child and I would pull on my big girl boots and find a new path but when I think about not living near 4 of my 5 sisters...it makes me crumble.  I just can't imagine not being able to see them all the time.  I know that he is close to his mother and sister that live up north too and I know it's hard for them to live apart but I just don't know if I am ready to spread my wings again.

I grew up with my sisters out of the house.  By the time my mother passed away, the youngest of the older sisters was a senior in high school and soon left the nest.  That left my brother and soon my step-sister and step-brother.  I love them and need them but it's different...that magnet isn't there.  When I left home to go to college, the first 2 years I spent in Tampa and spent almost every weekend with my sisters and their families in St. Pete. Then I needed to find myself...so I went off to college in San Fransisco.  I knew nobody and I wasn't were I didn't want to be.  It was 4 and a half years of incredible growth personally.  Then I just missed having family around so much I made my way back here.  It's sort of a long story so we'll just say it took about 9 months for me to finally make my way back to living by my sisters here.

Since then I have been happy living near them.  My pups found me, my husband found me, and we had 2 amazing little girls.  Through it all, my sisters were my rock.  They were my constant.  I know wherever I go they will always be my rock but it's not the same when they are a walk or very short car ride away.  They have helped me in so many ways become the mother I am and are constantly helping me be the person I am whether they know it or not.

I know this has been random but to sum it up.  I feel like a child.  I miss my mother.  My sisters are my rock and I will keep trusting God knows what he's doing and his big plan for us is bigger than I can ever dream of.

Hope you enjoyed this series of thoughts.

Do you feel "grown" up?