Happy At Last

In 1980, I had the wonderful good fortune
to marry my husband.
He was willing to take on this neurotic woman,
and her three children.
No easy task at that stage of the game.
After coming out of an abusive childhood and marriage,
I was unwilling to let go of the control
I had finally found in my life.
I certainly wasn't ready to allow
any MAN tell me what I could or could not do.
He accepted this and just loved me unconditionally.

WOW!

I certainly wasn't the easiest person
to live with. I didn't know how to trust
and there were questions over
every move the poor guy made.

With his love and support,
I was able to explore avenues in life that
I had never before travelled on
and he never questioned
why these paths had to be taken.
The most wonderful part of all of this
is that he did not even know my background.
I wasn't ready to trust
or risk losing him until
about five years ago, after the death of my father,
I finally got up the nerve to tell him.
As he held me in his arms,
he told me that I had no control
over that situation but that he was here to give
me what ever support and control
I needed to help me heal.

After going through therapy,
if that's what you call it,
I did start to realize that maybe
I was a valuable person and that there were
things I could do that would lift my self esteem.
The first thing I did was
get my High School Equivalency Diploma.
Next, I went and got my driver's license,
which at the age of 40
was not the easiest thing to do.
Finally had to take a Driver's Ed course
so I could learn to parallel park.

Next on my agenda was going back to college
and taking courses to get my certificate to be
a "Human Service Counsellor", which allows me
to work with people who are
in need of counselling and support
in different areas of their lives.
It was at this point that I thought that
I would like to go to university
but thought I would need a number of high school
courses to be able to attend,
so back to high school I went.
In one class, I was with grade 10 students
and although it was strange the first couple of days,
I soon grew to love it and the kids nicknamed me
"Mary, the nerd".
I felt like one of the group.
After taking a year of classes,
I found out that as a mature student,
I could enroll in university,
as long as I took a course to see if I could handle the work.
I have to admit that I took Into to Literature
cause I love to read, and thought it
would be interesting, and lo and behold, I was right.
I had a 4.0 average and
was accepted into the Social Work program.
Am hoping to start that this fall.

I guess that what I am trying to say here
is there is life afterwards.
The journey has been long,
and not always easy,
but every step along the journey
was a learning process,
and made me who I am.

Don't give up on the journey.