Confessions ~ The End

I have decided to end my Confessions of a Teenage Mother thread here. I wish I had been able to blog when I was 16 and pregnant. Or 17 and a brand new mom. Or 18 graduating high school with a one year old. Or trying to figure out how to take care of a kid and work. Or when I was 21-24 going to college full time and working full time, with a kid to take care of too. How helpful it would have been to have a forum to express my feelings in without fear of being thought of as weak. Or someone thinking/saying that I shouldn't have had a kid, I was too young.

Things haven't always been easy. They also haven't always been hard. The hard has always balanced out with the easy; the good with the bad. Which is how life should be. Without the hard, we don't learn the lessons we need to be human; the hard makes us appreciate the easy more.

I am not a perfect parent. I have never professed to be perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. There are bad ones, and good ones, but not perfect. I had times when I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I had times when I wondered if Scottie wasn't right to walk away. 18 years later I can answer that honestly, yes I did the right thing; no he wasn't right to walk away.

Stephanie turned 18 last weekend. It is hard for me to believe that 19 years have passed since I was that terrified 16 year old kid having a kid. I think I have done a damn good job as a parent. Stephanie is one of the most amazing people I know. She has helped form me into who I am today all the while I was forming her into who she is.

Stephanie is going to do amazing things with her life. She's already done amazing things with my life, by just existing.