This prompt initially stumped me. I think that’s because when I look back on my life, I don’t see regret, sacrifice or loss. The same question posed to me a year and a half ago would have had me going on for ages. My lens is like that, either rose-colored or smeared with black. I don’t typically make sacrifices. I prefer to have my cake and eat it too. Perhaps this makes me a gratuitous person (I like to think of myself as goal-oriented). But Let me dig deeper…

I sacrificed my career to be a wife and mother of four. But sacrifice denotes loss, and I actually prefer the latter job. I could be sitting at the head of classroom right now, or in a corporate building writing press releases. Instead, I sit in my open-air sunroom, with coffee and a cigarette. Midday, I’m not rushing out to buy lunch at a quick stop, I’m lazily digesting my homemade meal in a jetted tub, writing and selling secondhand clothing online. Evenings are not filled with hustle or bustle for me. I scan Pinterest for something new to whip up and then pour a glass of red and listen to music while I cook. I don’t wake up to an alarm and the only deadlines I have are those imposed by my children’s teachers for projects or signed permission slips. Motherhood is not always an easy job, but it is certainly one where I am the boss and make my own schedule and rules.

I sacrificed a vivid personal life and active dating life with my husband to raise children. My mother passed away four years ago and my husband’s family lives thousands of miles away, so help is scarce. But again, though this is a loss, it also ensures my children’s safety. Monsters are real and sometimes live next door. Our constant presence in their lives surely helps them to feel more secure, loved and cared for. And the sacrifice of the things I yearn to do sans kids is only temporary. Their dependance on me is so fleeting. I ache for the days when I’d nurse them in the quiet hours of morning, just as the light breaks. The new dawn of my adult life will rise before I know it. And they will all be at high school parties, or off to college or moving in with their first roommate.

I’ve sacrificed financial security and the ability to buy my way through the world. A family of six on one income has me occasionally visiting food banks, shopping at thrift stores, and once a year the school drops off trash bags of wrapped Christmas presents. My lucrative twenties saw me backpacking through Europe, sunbathing in Mexico and riding elephants in Thailand. But my thirties had me asking for grocery store gift cards for my birthday and calling my mom at 7 am to put $10 in my account for gas money to get to work. Again, this sounds like loss. But struggle builds character, both for myself and my children. We’ve all learned to make magic out of a free playground, exercise the use of all the local libraries and be more grateful for what we do actually have.

I’ve sacrificed my sanity more than once for men I’ve loved. I know no other way to love than hard, and I fight even harder. I’ve lost myself in valued relationships for reasons unbeknownst to me. Men with unresolved inner issues, men with addiction and men who are just plain absent. One of these men was a man I almost married, then my first husband, next my oldest son’s father and my current husband, and of course…my own father. I will chase my own tail, stand on my head and spit nickels in order to smooth discord in these relationships. And in my youth, I actually would take on and wear many strong feelings that weren’t even mine to begin with. Mix these with my own unresolved issues and it became quite the toxic stew. But this loss of sanity, however frightening, was a necessary evil. It was my journey to travel to these depths, to their depths and I have blossomed into an infinitely wiser woman due to these experiences. It took breaking down multiple times, in order to rebuild my own soul up to a point where I was more in touch with myself. And I would not change a thing.

Sacrifice is a funny thing. It initially evokes a negative connotation; one of loss, tragedy or pain. But the result of sacrifice is almost always growth, learning and change–all positive and important parts of life. A sacrificial lamb is a poor soul, seemingly undeserving of its fate. But the slaughtered lambs in our lives help maintain a delicate balance. This sacrificial process severs the limbs of over-abundance, gluttony and greed. I imagine I will have to sacrifice again in the future… and this elicits no fear. For when the tides are to change, I will welcome whatever washes ashore.