I think that I have judged myself as a mother in a very harsh way and I realize that I am not perfect by no means. I know the mistakes that I made and I know that I can't go back and change them but I can learn to heal by forgiving myself . That is the first step to healing and I can learn to cope with my past and know that I did the best that I could as a mother and just move forward. I can't do anything about how others feel about me except reach out to them and ask for their forgiveness and love. If they choose not to forgive me then I can only pray for them and hope that one day they will find it in their heart to be able to forgive me. We all make mistakes in our lives and we all hope that we learn from our mistakes and become more responsible in our everyday lives. I have learned that I can't continue to live in the past just learn to accept it and move forward with my life. I want to enjoy time with my family and enjoy doing the things that I have not been able to do so far in my life. Life is just too short to keep trying to come up with reasons for your past mistakes and keep reliving painful times in our lives. We must look forward to today and waking up to tomorrow and the day after. I feel that I have paid for my past and now I want to live in the future as well as the present. I have enjoyed being able to write about my past in the hopes of helping other women out there who maybe going through some of the issues that I did and I want to focus on writing about other things I feel passionate about. I just felt the need to share my thoughts with others and hope they enjoy my writing.