Sure, you
turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about
your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for
them?
This is a
difficult one for me to answer because I believe every experience happens for a
reason and can make us better, wiser human beings if we choose to learn from
them instead of allowing bitterness and anger to take over. That said, if someone was twisting my arm for
an answer to this one, I would have to say the only thing I wish had been
different about my childhood is that my parents would not have divorced (and
that my father had not chosen to commit adultery).
When I was a
teenager (my parents divorced when I was 12), the majority of my close friends
had two happily married parents. I loved spending time at the homes of these
families. There was no tension, awkward
moments, no step moms and step brothers, just loving parents and their
kids. Not that I had any issues with the
step mom and step brother I had in my life for a brief period of time, but it
was just like living in two different worlds: my world at home with my mom and
the world I entered on the occasional weekends with my dad and his new
family. It was awkward. I recently discovered some pictures from the
day my dad was remarried the first time, and the tension in my face was
palpable. It didn’t even look like
me. Most days, after a weekend with my
dad, I would come home and break down in tears, not because I was sad or had a
bad time there, just because I wasn’t sure who I was in his world anymore. I wanted to please him and spend time with
him, but there were so many new variables introduced with his new family, and I
don’t know if I ever really found my place there before that marriage ended for
him as well.
The funny
thing is, after over two decades of marriage and 3 kids, then over 2 decades of
divorce, my parents got remarried and have been remarried for about 5 years
now. So, the years in between are kind
of like the “lost years” now. I love my
dad, and everyone makes mistakes. My mom
is certainly not perfect either, and as I know they read this, I don’t want
them to feel bad or sad about it because in the end, I don’t think we could be
the family we are today if they had stayed together all those years. We ALL grew and changed and became better,
wiser human beings because of the pain we went through after their
divorce. I know it sounds strange, but I
am thankful for those “lost years.”
Although, when we are asked if we could change anything, we are usually
going to choose to change those things that caused us the most pain, and for
me, their divorce was the most painful part of my childhood.
Unfortunately,
for me, I would change the same thing about my children’s lives. I would wish
for them that they did not have to live apart from each other (one with dad and
one with mom), and that they were not products of a divorced family. Don’t get
me wrong on this one, the divorce had to happen; otherwise, they would have
grown up seeing the wrong example of a healthy marriage because that is far
from what their father and I had together (and the first 3 and 5 years of their
lives were lived in a very unhappy home), but if I could change things, it
would have been to marry the love of the my life the first and ONLY time around
(instead of the second and last) and to bear and raise my children with him.
But, that’s like changing the entire story of my life, and I would never want
to change having the two precious boys I have now, and I may have never met the
love of my life if I had not ended up in the Marshall Islands, which was a direct
result of my first marriage. All of this brings me back to my original point…
It’s really
difficult to go back and say you wish for anything to be different because to
me that means you have not found peace and happiness within the world you live
in now (disfunctionalities and all), and you have not grown from your mistakes,
but instead, live in the past, wishing for things to be different (or the same
as they used to be) and never finding your contentment in the present. And
that’s the last thing I want. I choose to live in this present moment and take
the good and bad in life for what it is, simply the good and the bad, then
learn from it and move on.
“And we
know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
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