"Wish I could wrap up this very cozy moment."

All alone, a big cup of decaf coffee, dimmed lights, scented candles filling the air, Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole crooning in the background.... It's a sensory vacation for me.  It soothes my soul and calms my mind. All is right with the world, even when everything around me seems wrong.  This is my happy place.

Someday my girls are going to leave my home and yearn for their own bedroom, their mom in the rocking chair, and the sweet memories of my home.  Too many times I feel like I let them down through the natural role of being the mom.  I have to make sure they learn life lessons such as kindness and responsibility, work ethic, table manners, how to love and forgive, and so, so many others.  Some of these things I am still working on myself.

I have a mixed batch of memories of my childhood.  There are the times that I spent with the neighbor boy who I babysat but also befriended.  We did silly things like wear panyhose on our heads and dance and sing to We Sing Together.  One time I had to hold a dead squirrel by the tail as my dad skinned it. There's the time I sat in my closet and cried at the death of my grandma.  I had the greatest 15th birthday party that friends still remember to this day.  There's the time I ran to my bedroom in fear at the headlights pulling into the drive.  A vivid memory was sitting in the ER and telling a lie to the doctor about how I tripped over my shoe laces at 10:00 at night.  There was that first kiss behind a tree. A belt.  Making Madrigals. My first car. Another fight.  A first true love. A first true heartbreak.  And so many memories in between.

I want my girls to have more happy, joyful memories than not.  Somedays it seems like I should just give up now.  Do they know how easy they have it?  I can't help but wonder if we just manage to adjust to our circumstances where the bad is bad and the good is good and the degree doesn't really matter.  I know that doesn't sound very eloquent, but I'm not sure how else to put it.  No matter how "not bad" my children have it, it still seems "bad" in comparison.  They really have no idea.  Today this thought makes me sad.  Other days, I will admit, it makes me angry that they don't appreciate how lucky they are.

The reality is, my girls have friends with semi-privileged upbringings.  Not necessarily in the financial realm, but in the spoiled, "you're not my mom" kinda way.   Does a mom share glimpses of her own childhood so her children can appreciate their own?  It's a struggle of mine.  My aim isn't guilt, though some would call it that.  My aim isn't manipulation, though others would call it that.  My aim is only to reveal all that they have to cherish despite having to clean their rooms.

                                                                                                  I continue to ponder....