life really isn't fair

there are several things brooding in my mind lately. there are many examples of this simple phrase i use every day to my kids. i guess i didn't have that growing up. maybe because i was the baby of the family, and my parents didn't like to hear me fuss. maybe because i really had never been bad off. maybe because of my generation of "me". i don't know, but i say the words, but i never really believed them.

now here i am, a grown woman. with kids of my own. and life isn't fair. every single day something unfair happens. some big, some small. some good, some bad.

when i first started realizing this, i thought some cosmic all foreseeing power had it in for me. see, that would make it fair. punishment is fairness in a way, right?

of course where my kids are involved, i really do try to be fair to them. maybe i am overly sensitive right now, because the raising of my 7 and 4 year old have caused me to try and make things fair. same amount of money spent at christmas, same type of toys, same birthday presents. same bedtime, same amount of gamecube time, and the list can go on. as i am learning now, it so sucks to have life give you that "curve ball". then you wonder where "fairness" ends and "jealousy" begins.

i hear chilly exclaim all the time that "THAT'S NOT FAIR!". i always try to remedy the situation, if indeed it isn't, and if i feel it is, i always explain why. still, 9 out of 10 times of disappointment for him are shouted out with that phrase.

where am i going with this? i don't really know. i guess i just figured out that simple thing about the sucky-ness of life. maybe i was being optimistic deep down and never understood the truth. life is hardly ever fair. the sooner i let go of this fairy tale, the better for me and my kids. i can only do so much in their lives. i only have so much control. life will get them in the end. when it does, i hope i am there to help them really understand that life isn't fair.