guilt and forgiveness

when i am nursing, i think of every topic under the sun. from lola’s future to giselle's school to being a wife and to death. tonight, im here alone. husband is on some technology training in hotlanta. my thoughts went wild when i was putting lola to sleep. there were my scared thoughts. my perturbed mind creating a few "what ifs"... i hate that my mind does this to me. remind me to tell jim we need a will before we leave for california. (yes, the thoughts were that bad). my thoughts then went to food, willie our dog and then to the weekend plans. tonight was an unusually long nursing/rocking to bed night. my thoughts continued to babies that dont have it as well as lola does. babies that have parents that neglect them. emotion of sadness and sorrow overcame me. then i began to think about lola. about how lucky she is and is going to be to have parents that STAY together. that love one another. i began to feel guilt. guilt that i did that to giselle. im sorry that i changed so much after her birth that it caused us to no longer love one another.
never did any one tell me, during all the advice and stories that people share of parenting that i will have a never ending feeling of guilt in my life as a parent. i know i am a good mother. i know that i do what i can for both of my girls. i know that i have made decisions in giselle's life that were for the better. but i also know that there were moments i wish i could take back. that i acted immaturely at times. i know that choices i have made, or changes in her life have created such an issue within me that eat me up. if i was selfish ever, i fee guilty about it. if i put my self first ever, i feel guilty. if i didnt listen to her once, i feel guilty. if i spent too much time away form her, i felt guilty. if i made bad decisions (and i made plenty of them), i felt guilty. it is bad.
and as of late, i have been thinking of a few years back. thinking of what i was. who i was. where i was. im not proud of it. and i feel guilty. how do i move past this? how do i tell myself that it was just a time in my life, i needed jennifer time? how do i take this burden off? how do i punish my self then move on?
i think now that jim has been gone for 32 hours, i have been thinking. i NEVER want to be a single mother again. i adore him. i love the family life. i wished for it all of my life. i am the best mother i can be today. and that is a pretty fucking phenomenal mother if i do say so my self. and a great wife too while i am at self boasting. i just cant get over my lows. i cant forgive myself for the bad choices. please tell me how you do it.
how do you do that?

Her fourth year.

Giselle found an old voice recorder yesterday. We found a tape from October 10th 2001. The tape was of her blabbing and making noise. Such as, "Yahh yahh yahh, da da, ma, do, yahhhh". Some time in March 2005, we found the recorder. She was 4! The cutest things ever were on this tape. She interviews me and I interview her. As I listened to it, I cried. Im not usually an over emotional type of mother. I just have no video of her when she was younger and this being the first time to hear this was so strange. A huge wave of emotion came over me. I can't pinpoint what it was. Was I happy, sad, proud, guilty, surprised? She had such a baby voice. She was so cute. I asked her what her favorite thing to do was, she said "Shopping at wholefoods and Wallgreens", (Ha. Wallgreens, what the fuck? I guess we shopped there a lot. I don't remember. ) and "going to Nay Nay's". I am going to see if my husband can turn this into a digital format. If he can I will post it on a future blog. It is so special to me. I never want to loose this. When she was four, I was going through some very hard times in life. I was alone, I had major money troubles, I was confused, I spent every moment that she was with her dad at the bar. I was depressed. I missed a lot of her fourth year due to work. I think that was the emotion I felt. I think that was what overcame me.
It has inspired me. It gave me that nudge. That tap on my shoulder telling me, look at where you are now. Look at what I have today. I am the mother I dreamed of being. I am proud of my self today. I am "the best mommy in the world" according to Priss. And that is ALL that matters. Today.