Maximize The Dash

I've spent the last couple of days trying to get used to things being over with Carlos (the ubiquitous distraction that he is). It's just different. It's what I've wanted for so long, but I don't know what to do next. I know I should be focused on the future, but when one has become so conditioned to a pattern of behavior (me walking away and going back to him just to start it all over again), it's hard to know what the future looks like. So I spent some time today reviewing my cell phone records from last year wondering if he'll bother to call (since Mother's Day is coming up). I was surprised to see that no one (and I mean NO ONE) called me on my cell last year! That started me down a neurotic path that doesn't need to be described. So then I read my blog from a year ago. My ex-husband (aka my baby daddy) sent me a text telling me that even though he doesn't say it enough, he appreciated what I do for our son. And I found a way to blog about what he wasn't doing for our child.

So that got me thinking (novel concept)...why didn't all the people I consider friends honor my status as a mother last year? Why didn't I talk to my own mother (even though I'm pretty sure I sent her something nice to mark the occasion)? Didn't I call the other mothers I know to let them know how special they are to me? What was missing from my life last year that I didn't have a significant satellite connection with other people?

Questions, questions!

I've come to the conclusion that I haven't been the mother I always knew I could be. I've been too neurotic and self-involved to be "mom & apple pie". I've spent my time looking to the past instead of maximizing the potential my own mother saw in me when she looked in my eyes for the first time and said to me, "You're going to be something fantastic!"

I was born in 1974 into phenomenal circumstances. And even though I've lead a circuitious life since then, I haven't maximized the dash that came after my introduction to this world before the end which will come after I make this world a little bit better than it was when I came into it. It's time for me to do that.

Somewhere after meeting the Norwegian I was out on a power walk through south Louisiana one humid summer afternoon when it clicked with my 30 year old mind, "I'm just beginning to understand how the world works!" I still have time in the second third of my life to get back to where I'm supposed to be on the dash between 1974 and the end to be that fantastic woman my mother knew I was born to be.