Stop the Ride, Please!
I read a phrase from a book yesterday, "Are you ready to jump off the merry-go-round of life?". I was thinking, "Yes!!! .... I mean, I think so." I am not exactly sure what the merry-go-round of life is but I was thinking more like Smashing Pumpkins - "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage!" for a background soundtrack than state fair carnival music except, unlike the writer of the Smashing Pumpkins song, I do believe that I can be saved. BTW, I am not a SP fan. If you start quoting their lyrics to me, I will be totally clueless. That one line from that one song just always stuck with me.
Life is hard guys and for all the wrong reasons. Really, life is pretty great and I am pretty grateful for it. In the grand scheme of life, I am extremely blessed. It's just that I seem to have such a hard time keeping my chin above water. And, the saddest thing about it all is that I know I am just a typical mom trying to keep it all together. There is nothing unusual happening here. There is no reason to whine. There is no reason to feel like I am the only frazzled and crispy fried woman walking amongst us. This is life and we're all living it. I could start naming names of people right now who are much more challenged with their every day "to-do lists" and life stressors than I am. Sadly, it would be awhile before I stopped coming up with names. Last night, the last thing I saw before I went to bed was a message from a friend who is sick, possibly, very sick. I tossed and turned thinking about her and her family last night. But, I know that today she got up and she is making it happen - just like me - except she's walking around with that big huge "thorn" in her side today.
If, figuratively speaking, there is green grass out there.. it's pretty obvious that I am walking in it. Yet, by the end of every day and honestly, sometimes by like 7am, I am a huge ball of stress. I often feel isolated but whenever I get a chance to speak to other people, I often find that a lot of other women (especially those of us with kids) are feeling similarly. I guess this is pretty much normal. Or maybe, that's just what I hope.
More honestly, that is not what I hope. What I really hope is that there are some people who are truly at peace and that it is possible for me to be that way too. I hope that there is a better way to handle life than to feel like a woman who is trying to climb a straw mountain. More often than not, I feel like I'm not getting very far. After ten years, I still can't trust my child to buckle his seatbelt when he gets in a car, and that scares me. My daughter can gulp down beverages at dinner like an NFL football player coming in for halftime and my baby is rarely impressed by my firm declarations of, "No!". I am so tired of repeating myself and having to be so preoccupied with manners and safety 101. Sometimes, I feel so ineffective. I just want to give them a hand-out with like ten bullets for managing life and move on. (By the way I tried this. It doesn't work.)
My two-year-old is true to Jerry Seinfeld's description of a two year old. Having him in the house is like "having a blender with no lid." I know God makes them so cute so that you can endure it all.
Allow me to recite what happened at my house one afternoon this week:
After using the bathroom (bad idea), I entered the laundry room to find my baby sitting on top of a mound of clothes trying to unscrew the lid from the laundry detergent. After wrestling the detergent from him, I realized that the mound of clothes was a mixture of the clean and dirty clothes.They were both white loads. There was no way to decipher between what was clean and what was dirty. I had to start all over. As I cleaned that up he cried and whined for something to eat and drink. So I was between sorting out the laundry and fixing lunch, feeding lunch, cleaning up after lunch, putting away dishes I'd washed that morning, etc... About the time I was finishing up with that I noticed some activity in the living room. The DVD drawer had been raided and DVD's were all over the floor. For added effect, they were mixed in with building blocks, trains,cars, old Halloween costumes a few books and some peanut butter crackers from some unknown place. As I was cleaning up that mess, I heard water splashing and entered the bathroom to discover his hands in the toilet and about a quart of toilet water on the floor. About the time I was washing his hands, the bus pulled up with the other two kids. I ran to the door with my dirty toilet water hands and greeted the older kids while trying not to touch them. Then, I tripped over a rock that had somehow appeared in the middle of the living room floor as I was on the way to get Clorox wipes to clean the bathroom with. As I walked back and forth with cleaning supplies, amongst whines of, "Can you give me a trial spelling test?" and "Are we ever going to eat snack?", one of the kids mentioned that they had a huge project due the day after tomorrow.
So, by about 4pm, there I was managing feces, answering phone calls, helping with homework, finishing my third load of laundry and trying to get supper on the table in time for everyone to eat before my daughter's soccer practise. Also, this was happening while my two-year-old (the blender) was crying LOUDLY with much snot and tears and wrapping himself around my legs to prevent me from moving.
These are funny little things... the stuff comedy shows are made of but they can make you crazy if they really do happen to you literally all day long every day.
Let me assure you, I was stressed. I was hanging on by a thread, y'all. But, while I am hanging on by my thread, wondering if there's any chance that I can pull it all together and be fresh and create this inviting Oasis for my husband by 6pm, I am always wondering if there is someone else out there dealing with the same stuff but just laughing and sliding smooth right through all of it without feeling like they are about to come unglued.
So, I started this Bible study this week called Stressed-less Living. So far, I am encouraged. So far, I have found out that I am not alone. So far, I am hopeful that there really is a way to get off the ride and enjoy a broader view and a deeper breath. The only scary thing is that so far, all the teaching points seem to be leaning towards the conclusion that ultimately.... the answer lies with me. Honestly, that's scary, bad news for me. Yet I keep going back for more because... Well, I need hope.
"In my distress I called to the Lord, I called out to my God. From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came to His ears." - 2 Samuel 22:7
.....If I could just learn to do that with the everyday stressors maybe I could relax a little better.... get a little farther down the road. I guess that's my goal or my hope with this thing... to learn to ask for help more.
Life is hard guys and for all the wrong reasons. Really, life is pretty great and I am pretty grateful for it. In the grand scheme of life, I am extremely blessed. It's just that I seem to have such a hard time keeping my chin above water. And, the saddest thing about it all is that I know I am just a typical mom trying to keep it all together. There is nothing unusual happening here. There is no reason to whine. There is no reason to feel like I am the only frazzled and crispy fried woman walking amongst us. This is life and we're all living it. I could start naming names of people right now who are much more challenged with their every day "to-do lists" and life stressors than I am. Sadly, it would be awhile before I stopped coming up with names. Last night, the last thing I saw before I went to bed was a message from a friend who is sick, possibly, very sick. I tossed and turned thinking about her and her family last night. But, I know that today she got up and she is making it happen - just like me - except she's walking around with that big huge "thorn" in her side today.
If, figuratively speaking, there is green grass out there.. it's pretty obvious that I am walking in it. Yet, by the end of every day and honestly, sometimes by like 7am, I am a huge ball of stress. I often feel isolated but whenever I get a chance to speak to other people, I often find that a lot of other women (especially those of us with kids) are feeling similarly. I guess this is pretty much normal. Or maybe, that's just what I hope.
More honestly, that is not what I hope. What I really hope is that there are some people who are truly at peace and that it is possible for me to be that way too. I hope that there is a better way to handle life than to feel like a woman who is trying to climb a straw mountain. More often than not, I feel like I'm not getting very far. After ten years, I still can't trust my child to buckle his seatbelt when he gets in a car, and that scares me. My daughter can gulp down beverages at dinner like an NFL football player coming in for halftime and my baby is rarely impressed by my firm declarations of, "No!". I am so tired of repeating myself and having to be so preoccupied with manners and safety 101. Sometimes, I feel so ineffective. I just want to give them a hand-out with like ten bullets for managing life and move on. (By the way I tried this. It doesn't work.)
My two-year-old is true to Jerry Seinfeld's description of a two year old. Having him in the house is like "having a blender with no lid." I know God makes them so cute so that you can endure it all.
Allow me to recite what happened at my house one afternoon this week:
After using the bathroom (bad idea), I entered the laundry room to find my baby sitting on top of a mound of clothes trying to unscrew the lid from the laundry detergent. After wrestling the detergent from him, I realized that the mound of clothes was a mixture of the clean and dirty clothes.They were both white loads. There was no way to decipher between what was clean and what was dirty. I had to start all over. As I cleaned that up he cried and whined for something to eat and drink. So I was between sorting out the laundry and fixing lunch, feeding lunch, cleaning up after lunch, putting away dishes I'd washed that morning, etc... About the time I was finishing up with that I noticed some activity in the living room. The DVD drawer had been raided and DVD's were all over the floor. For added effect, they were mixed in with building blocks, trains,cars, old Halloween costumes a few books and some peanut butter crackers from some unknown place. As I was cleaning up that mess, I heard water splashing and entered the bathroom to discover his hands in the toilet and about a quart of toilet water on the floor. About the time I was washing his hands, the bus pulled up with the other two kids. I ran to the door with my dirty toilet water hands and greeted the older kids while trying not to touch them. Then, I tripped over a rock that had somehow appeared in the middle of the living room floor as I was on the way to get Clorox wipes to clean the bathroom with. As I walked back and forth with cleaning supplies, amongst whines of, "Can you give me a trial spelling test?" and "Are we ever going to eat snack?", one of the kids mentioned that they had a huge project due the day after tomorrow. So, by about 4pm, there I was managing feces, answering phone calls, helping with homework, finishing my third load of laundry and trying to get supper on the table in time for everyone to eat before my daughter's soccer practise. Also, this was happening while my two-year-old (the blender) was crying LOUDLY with much snot and tears and wrapping himself around my legs to prevent me from moving.
These are funny little things... the stuff comedy shows are made of but they can make you crazy if they really do happen to you literally all day long every day.
Let me assure you, I was stressed. I was hanging on by a thread, y'all. But, while I am hanging on by my thread, wondering if there's any chance that I can pull it all together and be fresh and create this inviting Oasis for my husband by 6pm, I am always wondering if there is someone else out there dealing with the same stuff but just laughing and sliding smooth right through all of it without feeling like they are about to come unglued.
So, I started this Bible study this week called Stressed-less Living. So far, I am encouraged. So far, I have found out that I am not alone. So far, I am hopeful that there really is a way to get off the ride and enjoy a broader view and a deeper breath. The only scary thing is that so far, all the teaching points seem to be leaning towards the conclusion that ultimately.... the answer lies with me. Honestly, that's scary, bad news for me. Yet I keep going back for more because... Well, I need hope.
"In my distress I called to the Lord, I called out to my God. From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came to His ears." - 2 Samuel 22:7
.....If I could just learn to do that with the everyday stressors maybe I could relax a little better.... get a little farther down the road. I guess that's my goal or my hope with this thing... to learn to ask for help more.
