Life without my kids - Not work/movie related

I haven't written a blog entry in quite a while. When I first started writing in this blog I was going to try and keep it just work related. My plans were to use my MySpace blog for my personal blogs, but that didn't really take. I never visit MySpace anymore so I transferred a bunch of my blog entries from there to here several months ago. But then, I felt odd about writing personal stuff here, so I just stopped writing in general. I've missed writing so I decided to allow myself to use this blog for personal entries as well as work-related issues. I think I should denote the entry in some way though in case people don't really give a flying fuck about me personally, but do tend to read my movie reviews or industry thoughts - hence the title. It's quite a lengthy denotation, so I've gotta come up with something simple and effective.

My life has gone through a lot of changes over the past couple of years and I'm finding myself in that place again where it's time to re-evaluate everything. One of the biggest changes was having both of my children leave home. I've been finding it a bit difficult to find my place in the world in again, since my kids are now on their own. I gave birth to my son, Shane, a month before my 18th birthday. Two years later, Shelby was born, and at 20 years old, I had two kids. I was also alone with two kids because I had left my abusive husband.

At the time, I managed my life day to day, depending on my grandparents to help out with childcare while I worked. I didn't think about how unusual my life was or the various and numerous hardships my decisions placed, and were going to place, on my children's lives. I was still just a kid myself. Twenty years later, I look back on those times and find it hard to believe that was me. But, living each day as it came and pushing forward in spite of all the hardships a little bit at a time, I was able to obtain my GED, go to college and finish with an MBA. I am pretty proud of myself for those accomplishments, but my kids also paid the price. Nonetheless, all of this, I did with two kids in the house. My life was nonstop - I was always busy.

Today, I feel like it's just the opposite. Sure, I work all the time, but I rarely feel like I'm moving at any comparable rate of speed compared to three or four years ago, with some sort of tangible benefit awaiting me. Some people tell me that now it's "my time," that I got my kids out of the way early and I'm still young enough to really enjoy my life. The problem is, I don't really know how to do that. I always imagined that I'd go to the gym, get in shape, read, etc... But I don't really do any of that - on a consistent and effective basis anyway. I've had people to care for since I was 17 years old and now I don't. That's hard to deal with sometimes. Sure, the freedom is nice, but all of the other stuff, not so much.

During a recent trip to Las Vegas (Cinevegas), I had dinner with a couple of friends. Both have kids - one with a small child and the other with two tweenagers. They both talked about life with their kids, watching them grow and appreciating their respective daughters for the interesting and unique individuals they're growing into. I didn't mention my kids because mine are already out of the house, with children of their own. Once people discover that my kids have kids, they tend to not know what to say. So, I usually leave it alone. Anyway, that's just one of the many things I'm trying to deal with in my life - just trying to redefine and find my place again.

(I know the grammar and word usage in this entry is pretty bad but I just wanted to get something written down, so please excuse it.)