Twenty Three Years Ago Today ...

It looks like he is thinking, "Oh my Lord, what have I gotten myself into?"

.. our baby boy, Nigel, was born.  Happy Birthday, Son!  You have truly been a blessing to us all.  Happy, smart, handsome and born with the gift of words, we all love you very much.

Nigel was born in my third stage of life (my first stage was when I was growing up, my second stage was my first marriage, my third stage was my second marriage and my fourth stage is my third marriage and present life.)   

Before Nigel was born, I already had his two sisters, and his father already had his three brothers.  We were like the Brady Bunch, except that we were much more dysfunctional.  Us parents, not the kids.  My role was being the co-dependent.  I was pretty good at it for awhile.

A campout in the garage. These guys were pretty easy to please and went with the flow.  The dog is Lucy.

That third life, which lasted for twelve years, wasn't very easy for me.  We were always broke. We had six kids sometimes living in three different towns. And, if you have seen the movie Silver Linings Playbook, well, that is what it was like inside our home.  I'm just sayin', and I will leave it at that.  Watch the movie, and then you will understand.

I used to focus on the bad parts of those twelve years, but now am trying to just remember the good times.  We, even me, are smiling in our pictures, so there must have been a lot of good times too (especially in the early years). 

I have lost touch with the three boys, but I hear about them through Nigel and my Mom, and sometimes my girls run into them too.  We all moved forward and are for the most part doing fine, except for one of the boys, who has been battling a decade of drug addiction.

So, there you go, another little tidbit about me.  If I had never met that difficult husband, I never would have had Nigel or been step-mother to the three boys, so no regrets.  But, I will just say that all the little sayings floating around about how we draw bad things into our lives by our choices, etc., etc. ... sometimes we are just too nice and let ourselves get involved with others who need more than we have to give. More than any one person can give. They seem to have a God-sized hole that the other person is expected to fix.  And sometimes, we need to get out to keep our own sanity and to stay safe.  Another option would be them taking responsibility for their behavior, getting some help and playing nice with others.  Once again, I'm just sayin.'

This is not your normal birthday message, but I don't think any of that side of the family reads my blog anyway. I'm still working through all of my baggage but have at least reached the level of forgiveness, believe it or not.  I am very grateful for my son though!

~ Kathy M.

This song is about war, but I always think of it when somebody who can't even run their own life tries to run mine and then tries to blame me for how messed up things get.  I never did buy that logic.  "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards:

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I am aware that some people will not appreciate my words, but those living through the same hard times that I did just might.

I am linking this post to Pamela Kuhn's "A Sheltering Tree" weekly blog hop, Share the Shelter.  When you are all through here at Oregon Gifts, please hop on over there to see some lovely and inspirational posts. 

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.