This Life I Live: One Man's Extraordinary, Ordinary Life and the Woman Who Changed It Forever

Time has a way of making me realize that we can either lay the blamer our problems on someone else, letting that be an excuse for why our life isn't turning out the way we want it, or we can take the blame upon ourselves and let the responsibility for any change that should happen be on us.

I am me because of me. No one else. My decisions brought me here, good or bad. Any my thoughts make up how I feel about myself and others. I can choose to be negative, filled with regret. Or I can choose to be filled with hope....I don't dwell in the past. I don't blame anyone for who or what I've turned out to be, and I don't carry around my hurt or baggage as excuses for how I got here....But today is what determines my tomorrow, and right here, right now is all I can really do anything about. So I stay in the moment- or try to, anyway. It is a constant battle. Being present. Being completely present with the ones around you.

I’ve come to realize that we’re never going to get it figured out. We’re not going to come to our senses and be the family I want us to be. We’re just going to be us. And that’s okay. Life is complicated, and family is even more complicated. I am learning to embrace it for what it is and not dwell on what it’s not. To love even the slightest bit of headway we make, to celebrate the small victories and not worry about the war. To laugh at the insanity that it is sometimes, instead of letting it drive me crazy.

All my years of being upset and disappointed by my mother, and all the choices she had made, came down to one truth: She did the best she could with what she had. That truth has set me free.

Even the bad stuff, in a strange way, was actually the good stuff. It's what got me to where I am, and made me who I am, and it will be a part of leading me to where I need to be.

It's OK to have made mistakes. I've learned that all great stories must have a beginning. Where the characters are deeply flawed and in need of redemption and love.

There always can be a different ending to the story you've been telling. You just have to follow that still, small voice inside of you. And do something to change it...

It hurt them. It hurts them still, I think. But I have tried to encourage them to see what Richard saw all those years ago. Though their pain is great, their mother’s pain is probably greater. And they understand that. Like all of us, she is doing the best she can with what she has. I know she is.