# sacrifices



## jazzrose2 (Oct 5, 2003)

I did what I needed to do in order to survive and best provide for my kid.  Am I proud of what I’ve done? I am proud that I have survived and done whatever it took.  My son needed me to survive and so I have.  I’ve survived.

His having a parent who loves him and wants what is best for him is all that matters and I am the only one who can fill that role.  

I’ve endure the emotional and mental, physical and sexual pain that has come with the territory in trying to keep a roof over our head and a warm bed for him to sleep in.    A decent school with friends so he doesn’t have to grow up knowing the pain that a life time of loneliness and isolation can cause.  I made the sacrifices that needed to be made.  

As much as I needed to live life.   As much as I needed to get out there and experience all that I had missed out on….all the fun, all the ups and downs that are part of life.  As much as I needed to search my soul and find myself….what makes me laugh, cry, smile.   With so much of my life..all of my life left unlived, I just needed to live.

Yet I gave that life away.  It was the only way.  That sweet innocent face, those big brown eyes with the beautiful long lashes.  It was the face of a kid who deserved better than the ghetto streets which is where we were headed.  I couldn’t allow that to happen and so I did what I had to.  

Being cut off from family cuts a lot deeper than most people will ever realize.  They could never understand how it feels to be totally and completely alone.  How it feels to be a family of one.  No in-laws to drive your spouse crazy, no sister to steal your clothes or brother to threaten your boyfriends.  No mother to turn to when things get too hard.  No aunts or uncles to spoil you.  No father-of-the-bride……no father.

Starting over from scratch.  The first 27 years of life may have well been a dream.  Gone the instant you open your eyes and awake to reality once again.  Everything about the life you once knew gone with it.  

And yet from somewhere deep within your soul you press on.  Each day swallowing a new serving of pain.  Sugar coated so it goes down easy.  You’ve learned how to take it.  Just take it.  Just lay there and take it.

One look into those bright, curious eyes and you remember why you spend each day wishing you were somewhere else.  

Cant help but laugh at the fact that people think they know what its like to be alone.  To not have family or friends or a single soul to talk to.  They log off and go back to their husbands or daughters or wives to talk about the news or latest family gossip.  

Not many could do what I have done.  They may think less of me but I know that I did the only thing that could be done. Not many could have or would have.  Yet instead of admiring the strength I found they pity.  They judge.  They turn away and whisper.

I’m not a whole person..that much is true.   I don’t know much about relationships of any kind or how to make them work.  But I know that am a good mother and for that I stand tall and proud.  

My strength is beautiful and lean.  My strength is innocent and pure.  My strength is sleeping and probably dreaming of football.

I’m proud.  I survived.  I will survive.


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## mattquarterstein (Oct 15, 2003)

It must take a lot of courage to bear your soul so directly like this.


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