Writing my life out on the pavement

Lately I have been feeling like my dreams are no longer something I can or will ever achieve. It’s not because I don’t desire them anymore. It just seems that with each passing year, things no longer revolve around me. I am a mother to a 7 year old boy and I guess right now my priority is to make sure he’s good. That he has everything he needs in every aspect of his little life. And as simple as it may seem to some, for me, it’s a lot of work; which doesn’t really allow me any time to focus on just myself.

There have been times before that I have told other people once a woman becomes a mother, her dreams are no longer HER dreams. Her dreams become the dreams of her children. And yea that may sound super old school or backwards, but I honestly feel like this is how it is for me. I can’t sit here and pretend that giving myself all the attention in the world is going to make my son’s life any better. This isn’t like getting a divorce where all parties involved eventually get some good outcome from it. But, I’m not here to say that this is how it should be for everyone. I just feel like that for me and possibly others, going after their dreams is impossible, if not close to it.

But back to what I was saying…I used to have big dreams. Huge, in fact. And I had no other ideas of what to do with myself, no back up plans, no plan B, C, or D. I guess when I was younger I just didn’t have this dark sense of reality that sometimes things just don’t pan out the way we wish them to. And boy was I devasted when I came to this realization. I was in a shitty relationship, my home life was shit, my circle of friends was shit, pretty much had nothing great going for myself. So I did what every other girl in my situation did and that was get married super young. Basically throwing my life away for another life that was just as demented as the one I was running away from. Was it what I had wanted for myself? No, not exaclty. But by then it was just too late to go back.

I had a child two years into the marriage and I’d like to think it was a well planned out pregnancy, but it wasn’t. It’s not like my ex-husband and I just got pregnant without discussing it, he just seemed to act like that’s what happened. And then under two years later after my son arrived, we divorced. In the midst of all this going on, I completely lost myself. I had forgotten what my passions where and I had fully immersed myself in caring for my son. I was a mom. That’s what I was supposed to do. Not that I didn’t love my son, but when you’re all alone and doing things that were meant to be done by two people, it’s kinda hard to be happy about your situation all the time. That’s just not real life.

But I made it work. I thought really hard and understood that my dreams were no longer going to become reality. Did it hurt me? Of course. Could I change the past and do it differently? No. And I for sure wasn’t going to cry over it because what would that have done for me? Absolutely nothing; and on top of that, my self esteem as a mother trying to push onward alone would have been affected. Now, my life revolves around my son. His future and his dreams. I truly believe that there’s something that awakens in each woman as she becomes a mother and it’s for the sole purpose to make your children happy and amazing individuals. All the effort I could be putting in my so-called future, I now put it towards my son’s future and making sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes I made.

Am I dumb for thinking this way, possibly. Am I saying all girls that have kids young basically can’t make anything of themselves. No way! This is just me and my life experiences and the way I have come to think of my past and mistakes. I chose this path and quite frankly, I wouldn’t change it because I know one day I will have an amazing grown man that can say I gave him all the best, the way I knew how.