Have you ever felt that your life had gone by you and that one day you woke up and you looked at your children and they were you.

We mothers don't have time to think about ourselves and when one day we wake up, that day, when our children leave to go away to university or to travel, we find ourselves lost and empty. We are so used to giving that we don't even think that we could want something for ourself.

Even if our friends, husbands, family and even children tell us that, we don't listen, cought up that we are in our, or should I say, in their lives.

Isn't that funny!!!! For me, and I knew that this day would come. It was not that difficult to let my children go, but difficult to find who I was, to find what I want, to find a place for ME. Humm!!! Something to learn, a new life, and plenty of new territory to explore. I see it as a new chalenge, some new frontiers to get to and even though it is sometimes scarry, I think that life is really wonderful in the fact that, at every period we have the opportunity to learn something.

So now, I am keeping a few Blogs and I like to learn and work on my computer and talk with people all over the world. I have to live half in France and half in Canada so my laptop is always with me and thanks to the new technologies we can stay in touch with all the people we love all the time.

I never had a family, just parents and siblings and a constant war over who was in charge.. mostly I and the siblings were alone without parents as they 2nd world war was going on and the parents were constantly working or going to church, they were special skills and didn't go off to war just civilian stuff.. but always they were away so we children did whatever we thought was best but no real guidance.

That means that I didn't have any to pass on and didn't even begin to think about family until I was in my sixties.. now I have passed my seventith birthday and am living alone. I seem to have a full life as there are always people who were abused, abandoned, neglected or abused as children who come around looking for whatever is missing from their lives... Sometimes I can help to fill the empty spots, sometimes I can't, but it is strange to find myself in a parent postition to so many children in "adults clothing", people who never quite get it together because they missed so much on the way to getting here.

Thanks Ron for your comment.

I can appreciate your feelings. Personally, I have been raised by my mother mostly but, even if my father wasn't around much, because of his line of work, he was there for us and eventually came back as I was growing up.

I always felt that as long as my father was around nothing bad could happen to me. And that was my strength throughout my life.

But one day, I lost my father, and my husband, and that day, I thought I lost everything...

But thanks to my friends, friends like you and to my wonderful and adorable children, I made it through and I realised that whatever we think, when it comes to really important things in life. We have to face them alone and nobody can help us make the decisions or do it for us, learning, that's what we have to do and life is a learning experience. Keep on learning and this is what I am doing now and from that day on.