The Beginning of the Beginning

I am looking forward to the weekend.  The holidays are upon us and these are the times that we remember as we grow.  I am hoping that my children remember our first holiday in our new home.  While in so many ways this all feels like new beginnings, I have to remind myself that the beginnings began several years ago. 

I was in Australia, having coffee in "The Rocks" section of Sydney and was watching a man push a stroller through the street.  I realized that my desire to have children was stronger than I had been admitting.  I was in a relationship with a man who consistently said he didn't want to have children.  I flew home and told him that I was having children - with him or without him. I didn't want him to have children with me just to save the relationship, but after much learning and research on the process, he stated that he wanted to go on this journey with me. 

After much process, work, money, stress and focus we adopted an amazing boy from Moldova and had a beautiful daughter through surrogacy. (Their individual stories deserve much more detail than a few sentences in a blog.  I will write about it at some point if there is interest). Having them in my life brought me to a new level of awareness.  I started to ask myself some very difficult questions about what I wanted them to know, about my responsibility as a father and what I wanted for them in their lives.

I started a mental list of the lessons I wanted them to know.  Don't take a job for the money - do something you have a passion for and the money will follow (besides you don't need as much "stuff" as you think you do.) Value education. Don't stay in a relationship because you feel trapped.  But, work really hard at it to make it happen until you get to a point where you realize that it won't be what you need it to be and then get out respectfully and kindly. Don't settle.  This is your life.  Own it.

Then, I realized that it didn't matter what I told them.  They would only take their lead from how I lived my life.  I knew I had changes to make and they wouldn't be easy.  I negotiated myself out of my job as part of the senior management team at IBM and went back to graduate school to become a clinical social worker.  I gave up the big salary to do something I was passionate about.  My children got to see me go to school and work hard.  They saw me graduate and celebrate my accomplishments.  I have become a true life long learner.  I am now in Italian class. 

I also realized that my marriage was not working.  I tried everything I knew to make it better but when I realized that it would not get better, I told my ex husband that we needed to separate.  It was the hardest decision I have ever made.  I gave up the security, big house, extended family.  My lifestyle is much more conservative than it has been in the last twenty years.  My home is not what I was used to.  It was painful and there were times that I didn't think I was going to make it through -- but I did.  I gained so much.  My kids are doing great and know that both of their parents love them.   My ex husband and I now live less than a mile apart.  I am starting to get my share of terre firma.  My sense of independence, self reliance and hope for a brighter future remind me everyday that even though there are difficult moments after all this transition, I made the right choices and I am headed somewhere...and so are my kids.