my friend visited with me the other night and shared this tid bit. she said "i was all by myself, late at night, folding laundry while watching a movie (chick flick of course) and i looked around at all of the piles of laundry for each person of our house. i thought, this is it. this is my life for a long, long time. and i'm ok with it now."wow. i've heard the same thing from my sister-in-law jill. the acceptance at a certain point in your marriage/child rearing/working/church calling/staying sane/looking for work/worrying about a recession/do i have enough food storage?/when should we have kids? part of life. wherever that may be for you. how do you do it?
i can't understand right now what it's like to not have children, but then, i can't imagine what it's like to have your children grown and blaming you for all of their problems in life. or sucking your life savings dry with college tuition and downpayments.
somedays it seems like the grocery list never ends. somedays i find myself sighing when the girls finish off the last of the eggs or bread. "gone again?" i think. the laundry never stops. my floors need to be swept every 1/2 hour. i vacuum every day (seriously, every day but sunday) and there is always a lump of hair and dust in my dirt devil. and somehow we have a hair tie fairy that steals every good barrette,bow and elastic.
everyone has those days right? but what about the couple that has a hard time conceiving? or some that never even got the chance? what about the widows, and widowers, the orphans and foster kids and the families with special need children? the homeless, diseased and impoverished? what about the hurricane families, flooded, those with draught and famine?
who am i to complain about my completely padded, cushy, spoiled life? shame on me. i need to count my blessings and clam up.
2 comments:
I think you have a right to think about those things. Just because you haven't been through a major catastrophe doesn't mean that your life is easy and that you should feel guilty if you're not little miss sunshine all the time. We all have worries, no matter what our station in life may be. I think our challenge is to find the bright moments among our often black and white lives. Like today when I was waiting for a kindergartener to come out of the bathroom, and he came out with his pants and underwear around his ankles! :-)
It's pretty humbling when you can really open your eyes and see how blessed you are. Driving around today I saw a few mobile homes with roofs completely torn off, laying all crumpled up on the other side of the street. Insulation everywhere. Then driving home, a hearse drove by with a police escort and train of cars behind. I just got so teary as I thought about that poor family. A hurricane and a death. Double whammy.
I think it's human to to complain and have pity parties. We all do it. The thing is that we recognize it asap and get over it. Billy always tells me to sing the song, "Count Your Blessings." :) We really are so blessed.
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