choose them

i am saying this in love. in truth. in a moment where i have more compassion than i think i should and more concern than i thought i could. you are simply put and without hesitation, wrong. you are missing the boat and not just some small, flimsy, worthless dingy, but the aircraft carrier type. the type that moves so slowly and so steadily, so massively carrying the most precious of cargo, that for you to be missing it, your vision has to be so thoroughly clouded that you are completely blinded to what lies on your horizon. how can you miss this? how can you not see what is off in the distance and right in front of you? are you this consumed with you??

being a mother is so much more than mothering your children. i only know this because i have failed miserably on multiple occasions. patrick and i have journeyed down streets of indifference, drowned in seas of hurt and forgiveness and all the while believing the lies we told ourselves. the lies that convince you of the paramount importance of work, the inability to achieve success without sacrificing your family. the lies that tell you mothering is only about your children, meeting their needs for love and affection. for meals and fun. and while providing for your family is critical and caring for your little ones imperative, meeting their basic needs includes meeting their fundamental need for a family of stability. a home with love and support for the day, the week, the month and the next 50 years. to believe that you are taking care of your children while neglecting the vital relationship you have with their father is understandable. and forgivable...thank God. but its wrong. they deserve more. they deserve honesty and forgiveness and work. the kind of work that is exhausting, overwhelming and discouraging. it may seem impossible to repair and reconnect, but thats what you owe, yes i said owe, your children. you are running up a bill so alarmingly high that they will be left to pay. the ones who have nothing to do with you or the marriage they were brought into. born, without their consent out of a deep, real beautiful love i might add.

it does not matter how deep the wounds or how wide the chasm between how you feel today and how you used to feel is. it does not matter the weight of the hurts buried deep and the ones lying fresh on the surface, reminding you how angry and sad you are. there is plenty of disillusionment to go around, you dont own the rights to all of it. but to fail at this, this God given union, with God given children, to simply crawl away into a new life, an easier one (so you think) is failing them. you know, the ones that have done nothing wrong. and you may have convinced yourself of your justification for this and you may have lobbied really strong arguments to all that youve shared them with, but time has a way of bringing truth into the brightest of lights and while a jury of your peers may loudly side with you, there are little people who will one day be big people who will ask you why. why you gave up. gave in and let their dreams of happily flawed, but steadfastly committed ever after go.

what will you say to them? what will you try to tell them? and more importantly, when they have asked others the same question, what do you think the answers will be? what will they believe? your marriage is worth more than you realize and your children are worth whatever it takes. and it will take more than you have. it will cost you more than you realize but it will be the greatest gift you will ever give them. they havent asked for it, because they dont know its in jeopardy. but if they could, they would. they would beg and plead and pray that the choice between the life you have and the life that beckons would be an easy one to make. choose them. choose them. choose them.