This one is for me...

Sorry for the non-tea related post. I'm sure that with time and counseling, the few individuals who read this will come to forgive me.

There aren't too many things that can spin a person about the way love can. In the mix of the past four years, I've seen a lot of changes come about my life. However, not one of those changes has made a larger lasting impression than becoming a father for the very first time. This is my daughter Grace at ten and a half months. She's small, but she's strong. She's starting to figure out how the physical world works, but still has no grasp on the social world. She knows that when she needs a shoulder, she can cry. She knows that she can say "car" or "ball" to tell us she wants a toy to play with. She says "Momma" and "Dadda" and a whole slew of other things. However, she can't possibly understand how much the course of her life is going to change because of love. There are many different types of love a person experiences; love of food, love of music, love of your parents and siblings, love of your children. However, sometimes that just isn't enough to keep a family together. Recently, her mother and I decided that the best thing for her interest was to separate.

I grew up in a household where we picked on one another. We were rude and dug deep into each other. It was how we expressed our love. We always said that if the world stops laughing at you, the world stops caring about you...and we actually believed it. It took some time, but I am starting to realize that every family grows up a little different. Grace's mother grew up in a family that was much the opposite of mine. Her mother was divorced while she was still young. She went back and forth from both parents, and everyone had a moral code of manners. I don't want to get into too many details that aren't my own, but my point is that we all have our own little nuances that make us a family. Some times it works and holds a group together, but when we can't find a way to make those gears mesh, it's time to take a look back at our own roots and determine whether or not to steer the course we've grown accustomed to, or whether we should make a departure from our normal way of thinking. Why did we end up the way that we are? Where do we get off thinking our way is always the correct way? Why don't more people question this?

It all goes around and around until you get to a point where you ask two vital questions:

Is this what I want for my life?

Is this what I want for my child's life?