I awoke today and found that I had a question that I forgot to ask.

What in the world is life about?

Did anyone give me a manual on how it will be? No.

Did anyone tell me how my feelings would hurt as much when I'm 30 as they did when I was 10? No.

Did anyone tell me why religion was confusing and why I had to believe it anyways or go to hell? No.

Did anyone tell me that one day I would wake up from my selfish child mindset to realize I am responsible for my own happiness? No.

Did anyone tell me that my kids would be a reflection of my own behavior but on a much louder and visual outward scale? No.

I have figured this out for myself.

The first part of life is repeating your parents faults and skills, the next part is about finding yourself, the next part is fining out that your parents didn't know all this stuff until you were too grown to explain it, the next part is undoing all the negative stuff you were taught by default, the next part is about rediscovering who you really are with what you NOW know and understand, the next part is to try to remember to tell your kids what you were not told and show them life can be better for them if they choose it.

Then you sit back and watch their lives become wonderful little representations of what they believe, what they know and what they will someday be trying to figure out for themselves.

Ah yes the questions they will have for me..... I cannot wait because I too have forgotten to tell them and now it will be their turn to wonder and ask.

Life is really such a simple yet complex mystery...and as I get older I see more and more that everything I was taught to believe about life is just someone else's beliefs and that because I have built my life on someone else's beliefs I have lived life with their fears as my own, their angers as my own, their God as my own, their limits as my own and I have yet to truly become ME. How long does it take for one to become truly free of the past chains of our parents, teachers, leaders and church elders to become who we are based on our own beliefs, own hopes, own dreams, own fears, own limits, own God.....hopefully not another day because even that is too long when living with someone else's shadow and calling it our own.