Why Can't We Have It All?

Have you ever just felt sort of stuck? Unsure? Wading through the unknown and wondering what direction you are going and what direction you are meant to go in? 

That’s where I am at right now. I just feel sort of, well…Blah. Everything seems to be normal and boring around these parts and I was longing for something to shake me out of this funk. I thought some changes at work would do the trick and I feel like I fell short on that one. It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for but I know that God has a plan through that whole situation and I just need to trust Him and not just trust what I think is best for us. I hate lessons like that sometimes. This grand thing is sitting right in front of you and you are longing to just dive in and get to work and then it’s like…. “Welp, you’re doing a great job but not enough to get what you really desire. Keep trucking along!” Hooray. Hooray. I will continue to work to the best of my ability, that is to be sure. 

Then I begin to start feeling selfish and stupid because I do have a great job, we do have a great house, we have a wonderful family, we can pay our bills. Is it wrong to want to succeed? Is it wrong to want to advance in your line of work? Is it wrong that even though I want both of those things, what I really want is to be able to get pregnant again and just raise some babies. But then I hear, deep down inside, the echoes of all of the people along the way that have told me that I would go crazy if I wasn’t working or being a SAHM just isn’t for me…yada, yada, yada. 

Don’t even get me started on how my creative side has fallen pretty much silent, practically dead. I have ideas. I have songs waiting to be sung, waiting to be written. I have books that I want to write. I have projects that I want to create and that I am excited about. I want too many things, it seems. 

Why can’t we have it all? 

There’s really only one thing in the physical sense that is grounding me in this season. As cheesy as it sounds, Jazzercise has really transformed the way I think about myself and my goals. I’m doing a competition right now: 30 classes in 35 days. That means, with my schedule, I have to go Monday-Saturday to Jazzercise. So far, I’m killing it. I woke up at 5am to get to class today. Killing it. I’m going to grasp on to that challenge with everything I have in me for it is keeping me grounded amidst all of the chaos in our lives. 

Sometimes in life we just have to bite the bullet, have the hard conversations, face the disappointments. But, if we are grounded in Jesus and things that make us feel alive, we will find direction even in the chaos. We all go through funks. We all face trials and have triumphs. I want to experience it all on this journey. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes that’s hard. 

This Past Week: In A Funk

Do you ever have a week where you just feel thrown off? Nothing seems to get deep down into your bones to challenge you every day you wake up? Life is routine and that's just not enough. There must be more. 

This past week was one of those for me. In a funk and one that I didn't try too hard to get out of. I don't like these weeks, I don't enjoy those days like I want to, and I feel the need to make this next week so much better. 

Life is fine. That's about it. Nothing too extraordinary or life changing. It's in weeks like this past one that I need to put my dedication and thirst for the creative in over drive or I will surely succumb to all things ordinary and routine. 

I went to bed early most nights, also in a fight against getting the sickness that has been sweeping through our little home. I picked up the house, I wiped down the counters, I folded the laundry. I spent too many countless minutes watching mindless drab on the television. I went to work, did my job, and went home to prepare to start the same cycle the next day.

It was only 8:30pm. 

I don't need weeks like that one. I want to feel alive, like I'm challenging myself every minute that I can. I want to wake up and write. I want to drink a latte on a slow morning and do the best job I can do at my place of work. I want to work my muscles and my mind, stretching them to find a strength I didn't know I could possess. 

I want that for this next week. 

The only glimpse that shook me out of my rut was the fact that yesterday I picked up a guitar and I sat down at my keyboard. My husband and I played through my music. I have blisters on my hands that signify the fact that I haven't done these things in far too long. My instrument felt foreign for the first few songs and then I was set free. I felt the rush of something that I hadn't put my heart into for far too long. 

I need more days like that. I love that I am actually able to play music with my husband. 

I hope the songs don't become so foreign to me anymore, I hope the new ones present themselves in every hour of every day. I need that breath of fresh air, that feeling of blisters forming on my fingertips.

So many blisters. 

Being creative in life is the only way I avoid the feeling of being in a funk. 

Here's to a new week.