The validation we crave is something that not many of us will ever receive. What we hope to achieve in this life time has long been forgotten about as we learn to struggle and keep up with the Jones’s. My beginnings on the farm were simple and surrounded by so much love. It didn’t so much matter how I occupied my time because it was almost with complete certainty that I would never be doing it alone. My Grandparents lived on the farm next door and my Uncle lived across the street. The only annoying factor was my other 3 cousins lived in the next town over so there was no hop and skipping to their place. We had to beg and plead for a ride.

We learned compassion from the animals that were on the farm. Cows were for grazing, chickens were for chasing and those wild kittens if you ever could catch them we would hope to keep. There truly was no such thing as an indoor pet that like I have now. There was always the risk when one of the cats left the porch they would never come back. The only hope we would have that they survived the winter was the new batch of kittens that would Dad’s would pile every spring. The new beginnings of life were always the start of new beginning of hope. Simpler times in an even simpler existence that was distorted along the way.

I never thought that I would get so pushed off course from my natural roots. How could I ever imagine an existence without my true north. The fact that mine has been removed clearly indicates to me that we are fit to survive through anything and we can make it through to the other side. If you would have told my younger self that I would have to live in a world where my Dad was no longer my hero and worse yet my best friend I would have spiralled deeper down into obscurity. What I learned is the hole in your heart that develops when something in your existence is not just right becomes the cancer that threatens to destroy. I married a man who is exactly like my Dad so what does that tell you? I am doomed to follow the same mistakes that they made or can I rise above a new ending into something good?

I think this may be the source of my discontent. My anger bubbles over continuously when I see the similarities between the two. I can’t help but wonder if the same ending will come out of my marriage. We are heading on a one way train to nowhere and it seems to me like I am the only one who is along for the ride? As a mother I think sometimes we forgot our true course. There is so many other bells and whistles sent to distract. My main purpose right now should be the early development of my son. Why I chose to empower him with free will and choice I will never know. I wanted to live our lives differently from the get go. My son all though mine is his own complete entity. He has a will about him that tells me he will be destined for greatness as long as we keep the course that we are on. Have you ever held an intelligent conversation with a 3 year old? His intelligence amazes me. Where my husband has become oblivious to his surroundings my son is tuning in full speed. We forget our children are our legacy as we become self absorbed with our days.

To be validated in a sex crazed world that would rather attend to the next in line then their aging partner beside them. How many times do our life partners leave us for something newer, fresher, young? What happened to aging gracefully proud of our journey and who it is we have become. Why do we try to stimulate the juices of everybody around us then become offended with the attention that we deserve. We are so far off from reality that everything else begins to make no sense. What comes to life in the books I read is the passion of the lives that were lived before. The lives that had little to no materialistic possessions who only knew the family that they were born into. There was never the masses that would parade together to make those around them feel uncomfortable and out of place. We didn’t fixate on the difference of opinions that each other had because in doing so a whole day would be wasted and we needed those hours to feel alive. Life didn’t come to us in these ways of mass hysteria. Life came to us in the silent ways we recognized each other without ever saying a word.

I spent my whole life trying to learn to love myself again and I am nearly almost there. What is stopping me from getting there is all the others along the way. The ones who don’t understand your journey or maybe they have become jealous on your simple will and determination. I don’t need to compete for attention anymore. I live in a world where my validation comes from deep within myself. My silence and the stillness of the world has allowed me a chance to dig deep down inside me and uncover my own self worth. Like a treasure chest finally unearthed after a lifetime of being hidden away. The little girl who kept this chest hidden from prying eyes did so as she knew the importance of the contents inside. She didn’t want another to steal it all away. She knew there was value that would one day come to good use. That day came when she looked into the eyes of her child and it became time to pass her good fortune on. Our children are our greatest gift and the biggest travesty of all time is when we fail to shelter them from all harm. The most we can hope is to empower them with knowing how valuable their existence is to become.