There is No Easy Button ....

                                                                   picture from here

... but then, I guess that's what makes most things better.

If everything came easily in life, then we probably wouldn't appreciate most of it, would we?

Funny, even after 4 years of almost nothing being easy .... not one damn thing .... I still foolishly hold out hope that that fact will change.

That something, sometime, somehow .... will be easy.

I wonder why?

I don't really think that everything was easy before Jim died.

In fact, I can recall very many times that were too difficult to go through.  But then, there's not much choice about the "going through", is there?

It is what it is.

You get what you get.

And you go through.

But the difference is ..... things seem a hell of a lot easier to go through when you don't have to go through them alone.

And the past four years have taught me a hard truth .... I am very much alone.

I have wonderful family.

I have wonderful friends.

But at the end of the day ..... when the lights are out and it's just me in that big, empty bed .... I am alone.

And that fact is very hard to understand .... unless that's where you are.

The hardest thing by far?  Parenting.

Hands down.

I cannot parent the way I once parented .... in my "before".

And in most ways .... that makes me sad.

I think that I was a better parent then .... mostly.

I was a stricter parent.

I held my children to a higher standard.

Not an impossible one, by any means.  But a higher one.

I had no idea how easy it was at the time.

Because I wasn't an "only-parent".  I was one of two parents.

Jim was there.

Jim held the same standard.

Jim had my back.

But now .... now it's different.

I have the same standard .... in my mind, and in my heart .... but I just can't seem to hold onto it as tightly as I did in my "before".

I don't have the energy to face the aftermath that comes with that.

I don't have the energy to make sure that there are consequences that are dealt .... and dealt consistently.

I choose my battles now ..... and unfortunately, at least to me .... the parenting battle is not being fought as valiantly as it once was.

I am not a good mother.

I never thought I'd be able to admit that .... or that I'd be able to say, let alone publish, those six words.

But things change.

People change.

People die.

And what was once two .... becomes one.

A very lonely, and very exhausted .... one.

One that has no one to back her up when trying to hold up the standard.

One who gets fed up with dealing with the insolence and anger of teenage sons who need a father desperately, but no longer have that luxury.

One who thinks she cannot take one more day of receiving the brunt of normal teenage behavior .... just because she happens to be the only one around to dump it on.

Nothing is easy.

And nothing really ever was.

It was just .... easier.

But I'm trying.

And I'm re-learning things.

Things I used to know .... but can't seem to completely remember.

I haven't given up.

Not on them.

Not on myself.

But I have learned ..... when to give in.

It might not be the right choice .... but when things are really hard, and when one feels ..... no, not "feels".....  when one is very much alone ..... giving in may be the only choice.

Even if it isn't easy.