4th of July and a whole lot of emotions.

I have always loved the 4th of July.

But 12 years ago, it really became a favorite of mine because my son literally flew out of my body and into the world as the rest of the nation was celebrating it’s birthday.

I officially have a twelve year old. How is this even possible. I am now a mom of a teen AND a preteen. Life just gets crazier, y’all.

Today was a hard day for me actually. It is the first time I don’t have my kids on their Birthday. I don’t have Sean with me as he is spending some much needed dad and son time over at his uncle’s ranch in AZ. I tried to FaceTime him this morning to wish him a happy birthday and say hi and see how he was doing, but our connection was bad. I have been on the verge of tears all day, so I bought Angels baseball tickets at the last minute and Madi and I escaped for a bit.

Nothing more American than some good company, baseball, and good drinks. I really needed a margarita. Lol.

Spending time at the game worked for a little bit. But I could still feel the anxiety and sadness creeping in even at the game and it got hard to focus. I kept my sunglasses on so no one could see that I wanted to cry. I hate crying, especially in front of people.

Then, we drove home and now Madi is packing and getting ready to leave for a whole week to church camp. So I will be without both of my kids for another week. Y’all. Pray for me. I am going to be a wreck.

Divorce does just suck, people. It is harder when the other side makes it hard to communicate and do things together so you can co-parent. Try as you might, you just can’t force people to be in relationship with you, even if it isn’t a romantic one. Even if you just want to be able to communicate so that your kids know and see that their parents can work together even if they aren’t married to each other anymore.

That’s the hope anyway.

I am glad that Sean went off this weekend. He needs more time with his dad. And I was told recently that I baby my son. He is, after all, my baby. But they were right. Sean has to grow up. He has to learn how to be a man. I can’t coddle him. I am not a man myself so I don’t understand or relate to being a man.

Even still, it was a hard day today.

I will take the solitude time and really reflect on my thoughts, my own needs and what I want and need in this time. I love my kids with all I have, but I also need to fight for myself and take care of myself and do what I need to do.

It is that whole freedom thing I was talking about in my last blog post. I know what I want. I am on the cusp of something incredible, even though I don’t fully 100% know what that looks like yet. Actually, I take that back.

I do know what it looks like.

I just don’t know when it will happen. There. That’s it.

I cannot control when it will happen, but I am doing what I need to in order to make it happen.

When we are walking toward what we believe we should be walking toward, we can get caught up in the fact that we don’t know the exact date or time or even full outcome of our dreams. We can’t control that.

You can only control YOUR actions and YOUR reactions.

You cannot control other people. You cannot make them love you.

You cannot make them support you or care about what you care about.

You cannot force people to be honest with you or communicate with you.

You cannot strong arm God in order to make your prayers happen faster or within your timeline.

You cannot force change on others if you are not willing to do the work yourself.

Freedom, experiencing that and being able to live in it is not just for you. It is for everyone. That means they have the freedom to not be there for you. They have the freedom to not communicate with you. They have the freedom to love you or to walk away.

Freedom is good. But it can be hard because we so often focus on it for ourselves, and not that others have it too. Oof.

God answers prayers, but in His timing for His ways and timing are perfect and our ways and timing are not.

I realize this post is a bit all over the place right now, but that is where my heart and head is at currently. Today was a hard day, but sometimes, those hard days being forth some perspective and realization. Sometimes, we need to those hard days.

And all the emotions.

Have a great night, friends.

Tiffany Rhea