And here we are again...

This was originally going to be a comment back to Jaime but I dipped into so much I felt the need to post it as a blog post instead.

Thanks Jaime I really appreciate your kind words of comfort!! It does get hard for me to balance it all...I guess I've sort of given up on my life as a "lost cause" because of all the crap I've been through and I'm putting all my energy on protecting Hailey and making sure she doesn't see or experience any of the crap I had to go through. That sounds bad, I don't mean my life is worthless, it's not that, I mean I'm not depressed or anything--I'm a really happy person I just go from one emotion to the next all the time because of all the crap that goes on in my life! I just mean anything I do to better our lives I do because of Hailey, not myself. I'm getting better and better about not caring how I feel myself, only caring how Hailey feels. I used to be a really confrontational person who always had to have a conflict resolved and felt that how I felt was really important, but I'm getting more and more to the point where I would rather just walk away so another fight or issue doesn't come up...I guess it's all really complicated. I want to be happy in my relationship and my life but I sort of feel like as long as Hailey's happy and perceives that we are too, that's all that matters. But isn't that sort of lying? I think because of all the crap that has happened I'm sort of starting to go to the opposite extreme, instead of letting it all hang out and not caring about my kid like my dad's side of the family I'm sort of doing everything I can to protect Hailey even if it means being chipper when I'm crying inside. Is that just what all adults do for their kids? Is that part of being a parent? My mom, even though she was a wonderful mother and did the very best that she could as a single mother struggling to get by, wasn't so good at that. I always knew when she was stressed and what she was stressed about, and I always said I wasn't going to be that way. My burdens are mine, not my kids. I mean no kid should have to worry about having money to keep the electricity on or buy food (still to this day I worry about my mother like she's my child...her safety, her financial security, all of that). But I have always thought it was horrible when I found out that after their kids were grown and gone, a couple had just been pretending to be so happy for the kids' sakes and really had all these issues that they were dealing with all those years. I guess I've just always dreamt of the perfect life for my kids where everybody got along and was happy and didn't have huge issues to worry about...but nobody's life is perfect. I just wanted my kids to grow up without all the drama I did and end up less screwed up than I am, so I'm constantly wondering if I'm doing the right thing by Hailey or if it'll have adverse effects on her down the road. Is this something all parents do? Do I just do it worse because I'm overly obsessive? Am I just overly analyzing myself and our situation? Maybe I need to quit thinking so much and just...live.