Career Mode, Mommy Mode, Career Mode, Mommy Mode...

I had a plan. It was all figured out down to the letter. After eighteen years of waiting, it was finally set to be unleashed. My oldest, a legal adult. The other two with their father during the school year, finally, after year, and years of waiting it was time to devote my full attention to a career.

It was the deal I made with my kids years ago. If you give me time now and then to write, we will enjoy the fruits of our labor together as a family. I will devote my time to you instead of building a career, and we all knew it meant that we would have to do without a lot.

My family had to make just as many sacrifices as I did to build my writing career and I have never forgotten that.

But of course... plans change.

Especially when you are counting on other people to complete their end of the deal so you can focus on what you need to accomplish. When they decide to change the rules of the game, it throws your whole plan into crisis. 

But they don't know that.

Or do they.

Accidentally on purpose?

I wanted to do this without outside help, and I did the best that I could. I still needed a lot of people to get me here, and I am thankful for every single one. I have never felt entitled to a damn thing from anybody to get me there.

The kids coming home meant that I had to step back out of career mode a bit and back into mommy mode once again. But just a bit... I am still trying to find a balance between career on the front burner and family first, but I am determined to do so.

I have always organized my work around my kids, that was the deal. My children come before me. I'm the mom, it's in my job description. We have all worked hard to get here. It may have taken me a bit longer to get it done than I would have liked, but I never ,ever stopped working towards it.

And if it means being labeled as white trash just a little bit longer, I can hang.

That was the plan all along. To ignore you and keep going.

I can taste it now, everything I have worked for and this time nobody will take it away from me. Everything that I did, I did for my family, and nobody can take that away from me either. Other people can live in their fantasy world all they want, but they can't force me to live there with them.

Lazy, white trash, welfare mom...

Whatever. 

My kids know every single sacrifice that I have made to get here. They know that their mother is more than labels and childish insults, they know have always know that I was more than my critics judged me to be. My kids have believed in me every step of the way.

And I believe fully in them too. 

I will get where I need to be so I can get them where they needed to be. I did everything I have done for my children. I will keep doing everything I do for them. That is my job as a parent.  I refuse to let them down.

We don't need your permission to succeed and we do not need your recognition. All we really need right now is your silence. Whisper what you will, label as you may, saying it over and over again doesn't make it true. Your opinion stopped mattering to us when our best interests stopped mattering to you.

We are going to do this without you.