The spirit

This week ended the school year for 2012-13. It's bitter sweet. While, I'm happy my surgery was cancelled and I got to celebrate with my girls their culmination of their hard work. I am sad it will be the last year for my first born in elementary school. I've been emotional. So emotional, I've been frustrating myself. I don't look pretty crying. Wahhh.

Where has the time gone? I look at her growing and her lanky body growing into this young woman. I am not ready for it. I want to protect her from life. I am afraid of this world and what it has become. And, I breathe so deep and hard. I lock myself in the office.  It's been my place of zen, lately. I organize my thoughts, items of clothing that needs to be donated or sold. I set piles: 5-6, 7-8, 10-12. Oh my! She's close to fitting 14 girls clothing and 7 1/2 women's shoes. She's not even 12 yet (sad face).

I can't stop time but I can maximize the time I have with her and my baby girl. TINAPAY is her nickname. My Kuya (older brother) named her when he came to visit her in the hospital when she was first born. It means...fresh bread. She smelled so fresh and clean that the aroma reminded him of baked bread coming from the oven. Very fitting that her nickname is fresh bread. She is my child who was born under stressful times in my life and helped me rise above them. She was my single reason to strive in my career which has led me to teaching college today and pursue projects that would lead to consulting in health education. She is one of the main reason I found myself reinvented in my early thirties. I had her in my late twenties after a successful career in education and my priority was no longer myself. I grew to be a better Mom. A single Mom raising an infant. We bonded like no other because my day revolved her and it hasn't changed much 12 years later. There is no other spirit that drives you to become the best of yourself until you give life and have to protect that life.

I didn't realize the depths of my courage until I brought her home and slept the first night by myself with her. I cried just as I cry today. I GET OVERWHELMED THAT I MAY DO HER WRONG. That my life choices may damage her. And, then I Breathe. ..hard!

I read this book..in ways no matter how much I grow weary. I just need to call to HIM. I need to draw myself in his spirit.  I can't do without HIM. It is because HE has been with me that I could look back and say I got through those first months with a newborn. I open my book and I seek his presence in my daily life. As, I RISE to another milestone in my life going into my 40s. All of the above, raising a pre-teen with my husband and oh so sassy 8 year old. GOD BLESS ME..I'M IN FOR A RIDE!!