I don't know if it is that I am a late bloomer or maybe it is true what they say about wisdom coming with age (and experience) but I seem to finally be coming into myself.

I have thought about it a lot lately and have come to the conclusion that this is what happens to children who are raised by bad parents and grow up with no self-confidence, no self-esteem,and no self-worth, it takes those children longer, much longer, to find out who they really are.

I am one of those.

I went through all those years of being "the party girl" using my bad behavior and addictions to make me who I was. It wasn't pretty.

Then just as many years using religion as my crutch. I was that super religious, over zealous, perfect Proverbs 31 woman. It wasn't me.

Finally, in this late stage of the game I am discovering myself and I had yet another epiphany about me just in the last few days....

I am in the process of renewing a friendship with a woman that was my dearest and closest companion for years. She and I lived together for several years during one of the worst times of my life. She changed my life in so many ways but in the end I wound up betraying her friendship and going my own way.

Over the last few weeks while we have made tentative contact I have thought a lot about how that "might" have turned out. She is strong and beautiful. She is fiercely
independent. She is an unmarried career woman. I have always admired her but never wanted to be her. I thought I did but it really hit home recently that even if I could (and I could) I wouldn't change a thing about my life. I am what I am and I have become what I always wanted to be. I like being Mark's wife and the mother of all these kids. I'm good at it. For me, this is as it should be.

I am content.