On Being Human...

I do not know how much more I'll be writing in here - it has been so helpful to me in the process of becoming a mother in law.  And a better person, I hope.

For me, here's the thing.  I have discovered a lot about myself in the process of finding out about myself as a mother-in-law.  Any flaws (and as a poster said somewhere in here, we all have them) you have as a person are going to come out as a mother-in-law.  They'll come out anytime you interact with other people, but for me the MIL thing has been illuminating.

Despite the tendency I see on-line for MIL's to get a lot of blame for being terrible people, we really are just people.  Some of may be terrible, but most probably are not so terrible.  If you are a DIL, chances are good you will someday be a MIL, too.

Compassion on all sides is what will get us through.  I don't have a lot of that naturally, but I'm working on it.  In my life I have done a lot of things that I now can see were not going to lead me to a place where I would be appreciated as a wise and wonderful person, let alone a wise and wonderful mother-in-law.  That was when I was a daughter, wife, daughter-in-law.   And although I used to like to fantasize little "what if" stories in my head -- "what if I hadn't done this", "what if I had done that", "what if I could go back and do this", "what if ..."  there is no "what if".   There is only now. 

So, I am thankful that I am able to learn from the mistakes I have made and continue to make, that most of the people around me are forgiving and I can carry on, learning not to be so unforgiving and selfish myself.

In short, life is turning out to be good, though never perfect.

Let us forgive ourselves and each other - we all want to be happy or free from suffering.  It is possible.