Regret
I am living in the happiest moment of my life right now. How did I get here you might ask. Well, there have been a lot of cheeseburger moments as my best friend, and I call them. A cheeseburger moment is a defining time in your life that is like a snapshot you pull out every once in a while, to remind you of how far you have come.
I was once told that I should share how I made it to where I am now. It has not been always the happiest of times, but this blog is my attempt to share those moments and know that I made it to my happiest life and maybe you could as well.
The moment I am going to share now was a long time ago. It was a summer day in Michigan. A small town that had no stop lights and was about four blocks total. We lived in the country next to an open field, across from a horse farm and next to an old-abandoned house. A stream marked the back end of our property. A dirty road at the front, where a small three-bedroom ranch sat. We had almost an acre of land in the back and at this moment it was well maintained with plenty of room for the kids and dogs to play. You would think it would be a peaceful place, but it was anything but that while my husband, my two kids and I lived there.
The kitchen in the house was not big nor small, just enough room for a couple people to cook and plenty of counter space. The sink was placed just as it should be with a window above where you could look outside and see the whole backyard. This way of course the kids can play, and you still get the cooking done while keeping an eye on everyone.
I had one grandma alive at this moment of time. While I was growing up, I would probably say grandmother instead of grandma because grandmother to me is much more formal. She was just that, very formal. Always, making sure my sister and I were ladies, and we crossed our legs and didn’t run. We were to be ladies and not tomboys. So needless to say, she was not the fun grandma growing up. Must be the country air but once she moved from the city to the country, she loosened up quite a bit. At this point she would definitely have the honor of being called grandma instead of grandmother in my book. However, she did live a couple hours away and my husband was a not a big fan of visiting people especially my family. So, I didn’t see her nearly enough. This is where the regret part comes in. I realized that she was getting older, and you really need to spend more time with family because you never know when they will be gone.
Here is my cheeseburger moment and it was not the realization to spend more time with my grandma. It is coming just a few more sentences. So, I was sitting there looking out of the window at the kids playing and realizing that they don’t know their great grandma and they really should meet them. Now at this time they are only six and four and may not even remember but it would make me feel better. So, I call out to my husband at the time (yes, at the time, more stories to come) and ask about going up to see my grandma the next day. Knowing full well he won’t want to go but I figured no reason that I could not go and take the kids. He, of course, said no he did not want to go so I said “okay, but I think that I will go and take the kids”. I said that we would just go up for the day knowing full well he didn’t like me being gone overnight with the kids. And this is where the cheeseburger moment happened – he said “no”. I could not believe my ears that he was telling me that I could go but I was not taking the kids. He had the look that I knew he was not kidding and that it was not even a choice of asking why or telling him I was taking them anyway. At this time in my life, he had complete control on what I did with the kids, and I was not strong enough to stand up for myself. Needless to say, I did not go, and I will regret it for the rest of my days. Shortly after this moment my grandma passed away.
My cheeseburger moment was that no one is going to tell me when I can and cannot take my children somewhere and I was going to be the strong women that I remembered from years past.
I stuck with this snapshot in my timeline, and it took a while, but I did succeed.
Many more cheeseburger moments to come and I hoped that if you needed to hear this one that it helped you if even in the smallest way.