I don’t come from a world of wealth or poverty, I am somewhere in the middle. I don’t come from a world of happy, peaceful family life or the modern day traumatic and struggling family either. My world has always been pretty much in the middle, what most would call normal.

The day my house was repossessed was one of the worst days of my life, not in the material sense but in the real life wake up call that I had nowhere to go when I edged off the driveway. Two of my four children sat in the car with me, happy and almost oblivious to the severity of our situation, totally trusting mummy to know what to do, where to go because, after all, mummy knows best right?

Wrong.

The day the ex walked out the door was the beginning of the end of a traumatic 5 year relationship and although there were certain things I was relieved to be free of I also knew I still loved him and didn’t want this to be the end. Three weeks after he left I learned no mortgage had been paid for almost a year and a half. This was another incline of my stupidity. Three weeks after that I learnt he’d had an affair with the work colleague we used to give a ride home to, the one I trusted him with, the one I knew was single, the one I believed was a good person and friend to my husband. Yet again I learnt another part of me was stupid.

That morning in July 07 I sat in the car for 4 hours waiting for my daughter to finish her last day in primary school. My son was coming up for 3 and sat in his car seat laughing and chatting to himself. I have an array of neighbours pass by and stop to say how sorry they are, ask what we were going to do. I laughed, shrugged it off and made out all was well, things were in order, its just a house and like it was all going to be OK.

But it wasn’t going to be OK, not for a long time yet.

That night we spent the night in a caravan 13 miles away, the parents of my first husband. We still got along pretty well and I was so grateful to them for their generosity. The kids thought it was great, an adventure. That was good enough for me! We kept our routine that night, homework, dinner, reading the scriptures, laughed and played a little, story time and bed. I don’t think I slept at all that night for the thoughts, feelings and memories running through my head, just as was to be expected. It was the longest night of my life where I am convinced the clock didn’t move a second till gone 8am when I heard a bang on the caravan door. It was a neighbour wanting to borrow some milk. I had to laugh at the irony.

Almost 3 years on we have travelled a path that has seen yet more devastating challenges. Custody battle, destitution, vandalism to my car, a  year of bullying to my daughter and total neglect from the ex who suddenly stopped his vindictive tricks and refused to see our son, no matter how much I tried to work things out with him. Being a military man he works of his do’s and don’ts, not morals and others well being.

It took 2 years for the divorce to be finalised because he wouldn’t sign the papers. My solicitor had to enforce the required documents to the court to order him to sign, that’s how strong my case was against him. The judge suggested I consider financial compensation for the business stock he smashed up and lost earnings as well as the costs endured of living homeless in a car, childcare costs so my kids had somewhere to go through school holidays, parking costs so I could park safely overnight while we slept.

I’m not a popular person, not in real life anyway, you see I don’t have the ‘face that fits’ but online, I have a variety of friends from all walks of life and backgrounds. To them I am a range of wonderful things, but the few times I have moved from online to real life the boundaries have moved. This knocked my already suffering self esteem back to the ground. I kept telling myself ‘one more try’ but there’s only so many one more tries we can do. So now I live a solitary life with my children, work and live online and enjoy what feels like my destined reality. It’s not all bad but its not real, it’s existing.

At this part of life I look back on my 40  years and marvel at the severe traumas I’ve lived through. I wonder why I am still happy, cheerful, positive and willing to repeat those ‘one more tries’. I have endured abuse from the mother, the ex husband. I’ve been abused by an uncle, raped, constantly put down and ran over with a car. I’m probably more verbal now than I have ever been, not that it serves me any better but it does delay the life challenges some. I don’t revel in self pity, I work through it, pray, think and pray some more. If just one person can be helped, comforted or supported in any of the areas that I’ve experienced in life then in an obscure way it justifies my experience. I don’t dwell on the negative, I remember it, use it and learn from it wisely. Life is not for existing or living bitterly, its not for living in the past or only in the present, its all about making sense of things to our own capacity, to find a way through and move on. I am lucky, my faith in God and Jesus Christ has helped me to have confident, happy and normal relationships but not everyone can or will get to that point, and those are the people I ache for, the ones that I wish I could share just some glimmer of hope to.

Today, before writing this I have spent most of my time crying, feeling like I am nothing and totally worthless but then I tuck my 4 year old son in bed and he says ‘You are the best mummy I’ve ever had and I love you’. I laugh and I melt, to him I am the world, I know all the answers, I make things right. It wont last, he will soon grow up and realise that mummy is just mummy, but today he has reminded me that I may have had a hard time of it but I have come through it and that little person is one of four that has been my subconscience anchor that reminds me of my real purpose to life.

I have a way to go yet, emotionally, but being a strong minded person I know I will get to wherever I want to be. I spend most of my time laughing, teasing my children and their friends, hosting their sleepovers, cooking at midnight and sleeping with 4 giggling teenage girls at the bottom of my bed. I love school holidays and all the friends that call me mom and confide in me when something isn’t right in their world. I get tired, I get lonely and I get burnt out, but ‘one more try’ is always the first step for any of us to start with.

My book, One More Try will be published early 2010.