2024...Already?

 Time seems to slip by if you don't pay attention. I'm still in Maryland.  I'm still trying to be purposeful with my connections.  I have been doing things that make me happy, even when others don't agree or understand.  

I love my new job.  Back in 2022, I told you I was getting a new job.  I actually had 2 on the table at the same time.  Right before I was going to change Agencies, my Agency came through with the dream job I wanted and I stayed.  I have been thriving in it ever since.  

My dad still lives with me.  The hardest thing about that is that as a child and young adult, I had him on a pedestal.  I was a daddy's girl.  Well, the grown-up me has gotten to know him...I mean really KNOW him as a person and now I realize why my mom divorced him.  I'm not going to lie, while I loved my mom, I resented her for him not being a "present parent".  I blamed her.  He told me she kept us away from him and I realize now, that's a lie.   He wasn't there because he didn't want to be.  You don't become selfish overnight, so he was always that way.  And it sucks to see him fall from the pedestal I had him on all my life.  He's toxic. 

I understand that you do the best you can with the tools you are given to be a parent, but you still have to try.  Folks love to quote this part of the Bible about the parent child relationship: 

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3“that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

but they forget to read on because AND is a conjunction. 

4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

To me, the Amplified says it best: 

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them], but bring them up [tenderly, with lovingkindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
As parents, we have an obligation to treat our children right, especially if we are expecting them to hold us in high esteem. 
Anyway, next subject.   I am getting older.  I'm at the age where I am losing my friends. We are 54 this year and I have lost a few friends to heart attacks.  One of my good friends from high school just told me he needs a heart transplant, they want to put him on the list.  He followed it up with "But I don't think I want to do that." I remember looking up to the "aunties" and "uncles"  but now, that's us. The older we get, the smaller our circle becomes.
Talk to you again soon.
Thanks for reading. MzNewy