Today, while I was trying to find some important paperwork, I came across a tub of photos. I’ve been filling this tub with photos since I graduated high school. I wasn’t ready for what I opened, I opened memory after memory. I actually had to stop myself from looking because I was losing focus of other things I needed to do. I placed the tub back in the garage. I didn’t want to attempt to put it back up and risk scratching my husband’s precious truck in the garage. (LOL) Anyways, my son came home from school and saw the tub, I saw him rummaging through it and I didn’t think too much of it. He came in the house with a picture and he said “mom this is my favorite picture of all time” it was a picture of him as a baby, I think he was maybe 8 months old. It was him and my husband at the fire academy. This day, I remember so clearly, but unfortunately I wasn’t there with them. I should’ve been, but I believe my pride got the best of me. Chris and I were split up at this time, he had gone to the fire academy and passed everything. So then came graduation day. There was some miscommunication on that day and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I remember trying to steal the joy of that day from him. I’ve never talked about this before, but I was so sad. I had lost my family, my husband and now I couldn’t be apart of these special moments? I was supporting Axel on my own, single mom, full time job with benefits. So in reality, looking back I did my part! I did a hell of a job, being 21 years old and feeling like a failure because Chris was doing amazing things and I was just “working”. Little did I know, I made an 8 year career out of that job, I did well for myself and looking back it kills me to think I thought of myself as a failure. What also gets me is the amount of jealousy and anger I had because Chris was closer to being a firefighter. Now back to my son, he doesn’t know how that picture makes me feel and I probably won’t share that with him until he’s much older, but for him, he looks up to his dad so much and loves him to death. I felt a strong feeling today, the feeling of how far we’ve come. How we’ve put our selves on the back burner to give our kids a good life. I am often so hard on myself, I don’t give myself much credit honestly. I stopped for a moment today and told myself “you’re really doing this, you’ve got this” I have found myself a little jealous lately, Chris has been doing so well with work. He has a lot of great things happening, I am so happy for him but I often feel like I can never compare. I change diapers all day, I don’t save lives. But today, this photo brought me back to reality. As a mother of 3 boys, going back to school, sports, online learning, speech therapy and soothing a teething baby all night, I am doing a lot and I should feel proud. Everyone is important in some way, just different ways. Pretty soon I want to be back at work, working with precious little ones. But for now, I will continue to embrace these boys and our lives. I know it won’t be like this forever. Don’t forget to be happy for someone else’s success. You will be glad you did, I promise. Here is the picture I found today.