Chapter 5

I love a baby's laughter and there is nothing quite as magical as hearing your very own little one giggle for the first time . It makes you want to cry at the innocence of it because this little person gurgles pure joy but then out of the blue he starts to cry as though he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and it touches your heart and you want to make everything better and so you comfort him until he smiles again .

Hello little baby... welcome to the world . You are the centre of your universe and this is a learning process just begining. You are not the centre of it all and in order to grow up you will have to learn that there is way more to life than "me " and "my wants" and "my needs".

Why is it that we grow up feeling as though we carry more than our fair share of troubles .Some of us nurse a pain for decades like a martyr wearing a badge of honor on our forehead heaping memories of "unfair"experiences into the sack on our shoulders till the weight of it is too much and we cave into despair or bitternes.

"I had such a horrible childhood" we say ."No wonder I'm so screwed up now" . We either carry our burdens for everyone to see or we keep them inside us only to show with our long faces just how much of a special person we are for doing so .It's always so much easier to blame someone or some experience that happened long ago than to step up to the plate and admit our part in having kept it alive all these years.

I've carried a poor little me inside for decades blaming my mother for most of my unhappiness, blaming the world for making me poor ,blaming my unhappy marriage on my lack of love and understanding, blaming everybody but myself for having left me emotionally all alone in life filled with guilt for having not measured up and not being satisfied in life..Of course injustices happen all the time . Life really isn't supposed to be fair. All our dreams don't come true .Sometimes none of them do.

I guess this little planet is a learning place for all of us and how we react to what happens to us in life leads us into the person we are in our last chapter. I do know that we don't always get what we wish for but we always get what we expect.

I don't think I have ever met anyone that didn't have a story to tell . It seems to me that an awful lot feel theirs is tougher more heartbreaking than the next guy's. Your emotional pain is real and can only be truly felt by you and so it hurts so much sometimes that you actually feel you are going to die . And so you might suffer in solitude or maybe demand a lot of attention from those around you.There is no judgment in this, no measure , no one person that can feel your pain.It is yours only. How you deal with it and react to it is up to you .

I think that when we acknowledge someone else's suffering, a lot of us feel that ours hurts us more than then theirs is hurting them .Maybe it's a wish for acknowledgment , to maybe have someone tell us they understand that we have hurt a lot ,are feeling bad ... really bad... or is it that we are having a love affair with our pain .. that it gives us something in return .. like an excuse not to grow , not to take chances . Emotional pain must have a reason to stay because we sure hang onto it don't we? I sometimes think we hang onto the physical pain as well .I think emotional pain and physical pain are connected in some way but I'll have to think on this some more .

I have heard old people cry real tears over things that were done to them when they were little ,childhood memories heaped into a baggage they should never have had in the first place..carrying anger and hurt at a parent that died half a century or more after the fact. Some carry these like medals to validate themselves and to show others how much they have suffered in order to hopefully attract love and kindness to themselves.They still hurt after so many years . It's so hard to forgive isn't it? It's so very hard to learn to love yourself after years and years of crying inside and made to feel worthless .Funny how the child you were is still inside you even into your nineties .

I so need to let all of the past crap go . I am letting it go today and acknowledge that I am not the centre of the universe .I am not a baby,not a child any longer. I am connected to all of you as you are all connected to me .We are all in the same soup and flavoring it with our own uniqueness.To be sure , a child's capacity for fun is a quality that keeps us forever in touch with our innocence.We are very innocent in the ways of life and love even as adults because we are limited by our own experiences .I suppose still being able to play and laugh and sing gives us a reprieve from the seriousness of adulthood.

I am learning to love myself , to forgive myself , to forgive those that did me wrongs long ago and not so long ago.I have to forgive the recent hurts also . I have not walked in anyone's shoes but my own and so sometimes we hurt each other when all the time the anger isn't really with the other person but with ourself for having fallen short of our own expectations.

I guess we just have to learn to be more compassionate and then get on with it. Loving the person but hating the actions of that person is truly the attitude that says you are on the road to learning unconditional love.

My mother used to tell me that she filled up all of the five great lakes with her tears and one day after hearing this for the millionth time I told her she had no idea what real pain was . What real heartache was like . Shame on me for trying to diminish her pain by making mine look better .

I'm really sorry mom and I really do forgive you and I forgive myself for that remark .Her pain was and is very real .There is never any turning back and so the moment you are in right now is the most important one in your whole life .We can never take back a moment and relive it but you sure can learn from past mistakes . Sometimes it takes many falls into the same stupid pit before it dawns on you one day  that the scenario is the same only the faces are different and teetering on the edge again you say "Duhh! been there done that .. I'm not falling in this situation again " and hurray!! you have finally learned a lesson.

If I could go back and change things I would accept and forgive myself for being so hard on me.

If I could go back and change my reaction to the people that fell short of my expectations over the years I would accept them as they were warts and all . At least I'd like to think that I would do this but then again if I did that I wouldn't be the person I am now so I suppose there's a reason for everything even the bad stuff .

If I could .. if I could ...but I can't do this .We cannot go back in time but we can put one foot in front of the other and keep on going by trying not to repeat the same mistakes over and over .

Everyone that comes into our life , no matter how long or how short a time we have together was there for a reason .I hope that I made a difference in their life as they contributed to mine in so many ways.

Each new moment holds many possibilities , many doors to walk through.

I have fears yet to be conquered but also many joys yet to experience.

Learning to love oneself is learning to accept and love others as well and this is what life is all about It's not being so hard on yourself for just being human .

It was a sunny spring morning and my daughter and I were at the neighborhood playground a few years ago with her two boys for a bit of exercise.

As soon as we arrived the wo year old put his nose to the ground and took a great big sniff . .His mom and I watched him wondering why he was smelling the muddy ground.He grabbed fistfulls of earth in both hands and sniffed again and with eyes shut and a big grin on his little face said"mmmmmm ,smells so good mmmmmmmmmmmm!!! "

So we smelled it too and both had to agree with him ... It DID smell good .. really good .

To lighten up and see the world through the eyes and heart of a child and appreciate life unconditionally.

This is what we have to learn from the child that's within each of us.

If we can set this part of ourself free more often we would all be so much happier.