Ebeth's 4 and no more

 The courage with which you enter today will become the fate that you meet tomorrow. This is the opening line of the book, "The Pivot Year", by Brianna Wiest.  Each day has an entry with words tasked to equip, inspire, remind, refresh, and prompt a launching forward of sorts. You are instructed in the introduction to read between the lines as well as each word. This summer, I am determined to end the misery of regret and loss. It feels as though I have held one gigantic pity party for one, as I have masked my realities. I take pleasure in being the "strong one." I am the one who holds it all together. It was the definition of my childhood and likely my entire life. I imagine it will be repeated at my funeral someday.  "She was SO strong, I don't know how she did it." The final line of Day 1: This is the perfect day to start your life again. Yep. It sure is. Buckle up, readers, I have started my engine. 

 Comparison is dangerous. On one hand, it can lead to a drive forward, a certain sense of pushing you because others have achieved so, can you? But there is the dark side, where it opens up the door for doubt, anxiety, shame, and a myriad of things too large to list.   If I am being really honest, my oldest daughter seems to be the pinnacle of all such parenting things simply because she is my namesake, and I wish my life to have all the opportunities that she does. It isn't really about her, but vicariously walking her life in the hopes it becomes what my life hasn't and seemingly won't. I wonder if this is how my mother felt, me being the only child and a daughter to boot. She came from circumstances she wished to not repeat with her family, and I am a product of her survival and prayers. Yet I, too, made many regrettable choices of my own, which landed me in this place. Regret is an awful 5 letter word. Right up there with grief, shame, and ....  The funny thing i...