Life Lessons That I Learn From My Child.

Life is about lessons.  My husband always says you always learn something in everything you do.  He is right.  This week has proven to be one of the most challenging weeks for me and to be honest it is Friday and I am tired of learning any more lessons this week.  As a mom it is my job to teach my child about life but I found that this week my child was the one teaching me more about life than I was teaching them.

This week I unfortunately sustained two injuries.  One I will recover from but one has done permanent damage.  The first one was when I hurt my wrist when I unfortunately slipped and fell on the ice outside my home while walking my dog. I am fine, very lucky because I could have hurt myself a lot worse.  Fortunately I did not break it or sprain it; just bruised it and bruises fortunately heal.  My wrist looks horrible on the outside and has taken on an interesting color of black and blue but I know in a few days the pain and bruises will go away.  I learned a lesson from my fall and that was although it is the afternoon and bright and sunny there still can be ice on the ground.  This lesson was a good one for me to learn as someone who grew up in an area of the country where it is sunny almost every day who now lives in an area where snow and ice have become unfortunately common recently.

The other injury unfortunately will not heal so quickly and that injury is to me from people who I believed were my friends.  As I grow older I realize the importance of true friends and I have friends whom I have been friends with for over 20 years who would do anything for me.  I also am lucky to have a handful of friends who I have known for a much shorter time but whom I truly believe care about me.  Then I have  some additional friends.  Those friends are who I believed in and opened my heart to and who also let me down this week and taught me a lesson. Unfortunately that lesson was not a good one; it was a lesson about being hurt.

A little background on me to help you understand.  I am not an overly outgoing person.  A few years ago when I was dealing with cancer I became a social recluse but when my year long battle with cancer was over I decided to be more outgoing and meet people.  I wanted to let myself meet people for the benefit of my family and also for myself. I found myself meeting a lot of people who I liked and although hesitant to open up I made friends and let my guard down.  I then was proud of myself for being the exact opposite of who I thought I was.  I was no longer a social recluse, I was a mom, a wife and a woman who was finding people with common interests and building friendships.  I began to open up and let people in again and loved the new friendships I saw developing.

That is why this week has been so hard.  I found myself having my heart broken again by a few people that I thought were my friends.  I found myself in tears, doubting myself, doubting whether or not it was all worth it to try to meet friends.  I found myself wanting to become reclusive again and not get out there and meet more people. I spent an entire day this week down and in tears about the whole situation and then there was one incident-a sign that brought me out of my heartbreak.

My husband has been wonderful through all of this.  He truly is my best friend and has seen me through all of my ups and downs and I can tell when I hurt it hurts him.  He has helped me a lot with this situation but the sign I had was from my child.  The entire day I spent in tears was a day that my child really wanted to play with me.  I found myself ignoring my child's request to play and instead just wanted to be left alone to deal with the hurt I was feeling from my friends. My child as young as they are sensed this and simply came up and gave me a hug and said "mommy I do not want you to be around people who hurt you."  That amazed me because I did not realize how perceptive my child was to the pain I was feeling from my situation.  I stopped crying at that moment and returned the hug my child was attempting to give me and realized that they were right.  Why was I losing time with my family being upset by people who chose to hurt me?  My child will only be a child for a short time but will be my child for the rest of my life.  I need to show my child that they are right so they learn the life lesson that they taught me which is when people hurt you which they unfortunately will that you should choose not to be around them. I am the one who is supposed to protect my child but they were trying to protect me.

So as I end this week glad that it is over because there has been a lot of hurt I also realize that I can protect myself from external injuries like my wrist and be careful not to slip on the ice. I have learned that lesson the hard way and all I need for a reminder is to look at my wrist.  But I also learned that I can try to protect myself from internal injuries through the lesson that my child taught me this week-do not allow people to continue to hurt you.  My child does not want me to be around people that hurt me and in their few years of wisdom they are wiser than I was this week.