Only Child

As  an only child my life used to revolve around me. Me and me alone. I didn't have to think of anyone else first, second or otherwise. There was me. What I wanted to do. All life's choices were of my choosing, and sharing was a rare commodity in my everyday life. In fact, the word sharing was something that other people had to do, it did not apply to me or my life.

All this selfish only child thinking started to change 27 years ago. I do not have to tell you that when a woman becomes pregnant everything changes. Some of these changes can seem to happen overnight, while other changes can take years for their full effect to become apparent. The slow change is how the sharing epiphany came to be part of the person I am today.

During those first few years of motherhood and the addition of another son, my selfish behaviors began to melt away with each day being more about them and less about my selfish wants. Each day I thought less about myself and more about someone else. There were a few things that remained sacred, my hairbrush... not to be shared, and a toothbrush never! But my time, my energy, and my space all began to belong to someone else. Their concerns came first, those sons of mine, of ours, and even my husband’s ideas started to take shape over my once selfish thoughts.

27 years later the boys are raised, and doing quite well if I must say. And I must say, as the pride runs extremely deep. So where does this leave me, you ask? Lost, I answer. Now there still is the husband, whom I love dearly, and would go to the ends of the Earth to make him happy, I did move to Anchorage after all. There are friends in my life for whom I am their cheerleader. Cheering them on at each corner of their own personal race.

But me, where am I among all these lost and lonely feelings?

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