Friends, Romans, Countrymen....

It has been a busy few days for myself and my family, yesterday was my daughter's birthday, it is boggling for me to think that my baby is now six years old. From the moment she was born there was a gentleness to her, an ever present goodness of soul and I am loving watching how that soul continues to blossom. Looking at her on her on our bed yesterday opening all her presents, grateful for everything she got, I could not help but sit there with a certain level of awe how she seemed to take nothing for granted. Even today at her party, she is happy to share the limelight, always acutely aware of those around her, always sensitive to their emotions.

My children are very different personalities and I get a very different understanding and outlook on life from each of them. My approach to parenting varies to their ever changing and unique personalities. I once again had a sit down with my Mom yesterday, this time ever sure that I would be able to honestly express my sexuality to her, but alas, the world had different plans as we were interrupted literally as I was about to read a line on a previous blog that would have left no doubt in her mind as to my conflict. In a way I am pleased, although i have this great desire to tell her, I am still not entirely sure why. What I was able to express to her yesterday and if nothing else was something that needed to be said. I explained and allowed her to see and realize how through subtle manipulation they have always tried to steer me in a course that they believed would make me happy, without ever asking if it would. I married so young in life with little understanding of the commitment I was entering into and yet my parents never hesitated to encourage me to take the leap.

Well leap I did, today is my 9 year wedding anniversary and I can tell you that I never once thought that this was how life would turn out. I was resolved in my decision, I never really hesitated and although there were some who stopped and asked me if I had thought it all through, I guess just like Julius Caesar who was warned in the play by Shakespeare "beware of the Ides of March", but we both seemed arrogant to the fact that no harm could ever come to us, however we were both wrong, although for me this is real life and more importantly my life. My Mom said to me in a discrediting tone that I seemed to be highly analytical of them, to which I explained that I had to be, I am gaining an understanding not only of myself, but my pain as well, it is only when one stops to access and scrutinize oneself properly that one can truly know what to mend.

My marriage might not have been what in my youth I fantasised about, but what it has been is a safe place to be my most vulnerable with a women that clearly loves me very much and who just like my daughter leaves me in awe at her goodness. We have the greatest desire to see each other happy and we find ourselves independent in our journeys, whilst knowing the other is there always encouraging and supporting the other along the way. I flippantly commented on a fellow blogger's post that the answer itself is the easy part, it is the question as to who you want to be that is hardest, this however made me think. It is that simple really, who is it that I wish and want to be. The line that resonates most with me from Shakespeare's play is "Poor Brutus, with himself at war, forgets the shows of love to other men."