I Walk the Line

When the idea for this blog first started hatching, it began as a conversation in the workroom at my school between a few other teachers. I tossed the idea out there after regaling them with a funny story about Amelia. I shared that I thought it would be fun to share the stories that Amelia and I share right before she goes to bed becase she is so wise, so smart...but mostly she is simply hysterical. She is able to fire off quips and comebacks that make me giggle, and I wanted to share that with others. I always enjoy sharing Amelia-isms and I often posted stories about my girls to Facebook. These stories would eventually be shared with others who are not on Facebook and many of them would tell me that I needed to write them down. So, my thoughts about the blog, tied with people telling me to write down the stories from Amelia, sorta led to this blog thing. But then, something happened. My girl's stories right before bed switched. They went from the funny, light-hearted stories that I would often share at the workroom counter, to serious, heavy discussions that have led to some great blog posts (if I must say so myself...haha!). And the things that we discuss right before bed have given me some great "moral of the story" type lessons that have been great reminders for me, but have also been thought-provoking for some of my readers from comments I have gotten. But, I have to admit, there is a fine line between something that I should share, and something that I should not. And the line isn't always that clear. So, I debate...I bargain...I lament over which stories I share in order to help myself grow, or to potentially help someone else grow, and which stories remain sacred between a mother and a daughter. There were a few articles back where I posed the question about sharing the stories with others and if that would potentially make my daughter resent me. If my sharing stories with the internet would someday make her not want to share with me anymore. And I would never want to compromise that with Amelia. Her little spirit and her heart have already been through so much in her six years on this earth, that I would never want to be the cause of another blow. So, every night when I type my post for the night, I walk the line...I walk the line between a mom and a blogger. I walk the line between sharing and oversharing. I walk the line between potentially saving a stranger who reads our story and potentially losing the trust of my daughter some day. And I think that so far I have walked on the side of caution. Each story that I type is delicately written, read through a few dozen times, read from my perspective as well as trying to read it through my teenage daughter's eyes in ten years. And I hope that the stories that I am writing walk on the right side of that line, the side of the line that I want to be on with my kids. I struggled with this post tonight, because a conversation did happen tonight with Amelia. And this is the second night in a row that this conversation happened. And as much as I think it is important to share the conversation that we had, I just can't. I know, as a writer, that this is probably unfair to my readers. To lead into something that is a struggle, to tell you the time and thought that has gone into figuring out if I should share this story, and then to leave you hanging, but perhaps sometime in the near future this will be shared. Perhaps this is something that I am going to have to think on for longer than a couple hours. It is a tough line to tow. How exactly should I determine what to share and what to not? What are some topics that are off limits? When I think about myself and which topics I don't want discussed as an adult, the burden is ten times that when it is regarding a child, especially my child. And I'm sure not telling you, but leading into it with all this hype and mystery is probably making imaginations run wild with assumptions. And I think that's OK because the events of our life the past three years wouldn't be something that I would ever dream up in a million years. The story of how we all got to where we are today would never be something that I ever would have picked out as my story. But maybe this is true in anyone's life? Perhaps when you look at the events that got you to where you are right now in life, it's most likely not how you would have written the story! I know that this would not be my story. Well, not all of it. It's ended up pretty good. Speech therapy wasn't what I wanted to do when I went off to college, but I love my profession. Jackson Park was not the school I was hoping for, but it was the one available when I got hired, and I wouldn't pick another school now. Brian was the biggest nerd I'd met in my entire life and he wasn't my type at all, but I married him, and I now have the two best things in my entire life, my girls. Having to go through the death of the man that I married was horrific, but I wouldn't trade my experiences for not having to go through that, especially knowing that I wouldn't have Amelia and Emerson if I did. Think about your life. I'm sure that there is something in it that you would have done differently. Something that you maybe want to go back and change. But what would happen if you did? What would be missing in your life? What would be erased? What would be different? Life is unpredictable. And there is always a fine line that we walk every day. And there was a story to tell tonight and one day, I'll share it. It might be tomorrow, or it might be further along in the blog post. But for tonight, I need to pray on the topic, figure out if it's something that I share, if it's something that could help someone some day. The girls and I have experiences that can help others, and I see the value in that. I just don't want to share something to alter the course of the path we are supposed to take. Because the choices we make do impact the paths that we are led down. And we've kind of been on a wild ride. I don't want to do anything that make that worse. In the meantime, know that we are making our choices based on prayer and conversatios with each other. And sometimes, every once in a while, conversations with the readers of this blog. I enjoy the time that I share with my girls. The deep conversations that we have are eye-opening, and many of them I wish I didn't have to have with my six year old. But I keep having them, because we are growing and healing and getting through this together. In the meantime, I'm hoping for a funny story soon! But in the meantime, I walk the line...and I hope I don't lean too far in one direction.