SORRY

Do you ever find yourself apologizing for everything and everyone? I never realized how "sorry" I was until my oldest son began to say he was "sorry" for everything. Isn't it interesting that we never truly see ourselves until we have impacted someone else. I am mirrored in my son and sometimes I am ashamed of what I have taught him and sometimes I am so proud that I cry. He is truly a wonderful person and a wonderful child. I don't know where he could have learned it from because I have not been a very good mother to him so far. I have many regrets that haunt me late into the night. I chose boyfriends over him and allowed them to dictate my life as well as his. I was not emotionally available to him or for him for most of his childhood because I could barely breathe on my own. He has had to endure what most children will never see in a lifetime. He watched his daddy beat his mother and then watched his mother's boyfriend beat her. He watched his mother turn into a shell of a person and fall into delicate little pieces onto the floor. He sacrificed everything so that he could be safe when the world fell apart. I feel sorry for the pathetic life that I set out before him when he had no choice. I feel sorry that I allowed him to be put in second and even third place in my life. He is a strong and beautiful boy and a dream for a child. He is well behaved and has wonderful manners and is so talented and so smart. I wish that I could ball up all of his dreams and wrap them up and tie them with a bow and give them to him because of all the people in the world he deserves to have his dreams come true. I hope one day he knows how much I love him and that these things didn't happen because I didn't love him but because I didn't love myself. Maybe I walk around apologizing for everyone and everything because I can't seem to apologize for the things that really matter. Sorry can become as useless as "I love you"; neither of them matter if you use them often but never change the way you behave. I have become sorry for the entire world and everything that is wrong with it. I have become sorry because I cannot do all and be all. I am sorry because I couldn't get to the dishes tonight. I am sorry because I can't sleep. I am sorry because dinner didn't taste good. I am sorry because the house is a mess. I am sorry because I am not more perfect. I am sorry because I am NOT perfect. I am not sure there will ever come a day that I will not be sorry for something that is inevitable or unattainable. I strive for absolute perfection in my own messy and screwed up way but it is never enough. I am especially sorry that my son has been introduced to this cold and brutal world and that he will never entertain the illusion that this world is a wonderful place to live in. He knows the truth and sometimes I am sorry that he knows the truth. I know I am sorry that I know the truth. Life was so much better when I didn't have any concern but myself. I was the center of my universe and nothing else mattered. What a simple and easy way to live. I am now working on gluing all my delicate little pieces back together. I am creating a mosaic of what I used to be with bright and beautiful colored shards of glass. Sometimes they cut me and sometimes they fit nicely into place. One day I will be whole again and a beautiful rendition of my former self. I will still be me but remade into the person I was supposed to be before violence tore me apart. I hope one day I will not look in the mirror and feel sorry, but will feel pride in the fact that I have fallen as far as I can go and I have rebuilt myself one little shard of glass at a time. I may break, but I can always be glued back together. I hope that one day my son will understand how much his mommy loves him and how truly sorry she is that his life began in chaos. One day I hope my son will break the cycle of chaos just as his mommy has tried to break the cycle of violence. Our decisions and actions don't just affect us in the here and now; they follow us like a legacy from generation to generation. For that I am truly sorry.