This was simply the time of being busy creating my newest mask, the mask of "my children are original, mine, and we're not different as a family.....really" I simply hated the word step at that time. To me Step implied that I really didn't love them, or they were less...or I was less. Somehow it was really okay for me to say, they were my husband's originally (totally ignoring the fact that they did have a mother somewhere....never intending to, just unaware of the consequences at that point) and saying something like "yes, these are my children, I married them and they were the answers to prayer for more children" Now doesn't that sound holy? Self building? I could almost see people putting the halo over my head and perhaps changing their perception of my wickedness and my past failures...."She's really come around" I could imagine they'd say. Step mother was somewhat akin to wicked creatures, witches, and ugly in people's minds..or at least my own, so overcoming how to explain the answer of two older children suddenly showing up in my life immediately became an issue for my silly self. After all, they didn't have the advantage of being young and overly rambunctious...they were older, a little awkward at teen years, and definately in a new environment from the city they had come from, with different rules, different economics, different schools, and a Waaaaaay different new step mother in their lives.
Meanwhile my step children had an immediate issue with being known as "my children" they had a mother, they loved her and she was quite real and she was not me. Spending so much more time worrying about appearances than realities at that stage of our blended family.....I simply didn't notice there was an issue....until one day one of my step children identified me quite loudly at a church social to one of the Lollies(a lady over 70 at the church)..."No, She is absolutely NOT my mother, She is only my father's wife, she's some woman my dad found on the internet and managed to be stupid enough to marry....I think he did it to get me free Mary Kay, she certainly can't do anything else right....she can't even find clean socks for me to wear"
ding ding ding ding My very first comprehension that perhaps I had taken the children into my heart and world, but they most certainly had not returned the favor at this time.....and damage control department was closed for the season....we rode home in silence....1/2 my little country Southern church had heard the statements and in the country, where there is no internet connections or cell phones that work, the best source for gossip is a good ear at a country church gathering....and my cover had just been blown, the lightening fast community gossip line had a new lead topic, I'd done it again....I .was.not.together....lol...as if they had ever thought I was...after all they'd known me all my life...and in case you're new to reading.....I live life out loud....whether or not I try....and ready or not, I had alot of new things to deal with .....and very few of them I knew anything about how to handle! (to be continued)
God is good...and thankfully, He forgive me daily, hourly, and loves me despite me.

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