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. 

Sometimes | The Ramblings of a Parent

Sometimes it really sucks being a mom. There…. I said it. Sometimes I want to yell a lot and slam cabinet doors. Sometimes I want to go into a room and close the door for a while. Sometimes I want to not go down the road of growing our family beyond three. 

Sometimes I want to quit and pout. It’s not my kid. It’s me and I know it. It’s my short fuse sometimes when I am tired and worn out. It’s my heart that breaks whenever I try to leave her anywhere and she goes into pure hysterics. Separation anxiety is super crappy. It makes me feel like I’m not doing something right.

Let’s not forget about when dinner time becomes a battle ground. Thrown food, refusing to eat, crying for things she can’t have. I become the bad guy and I don’t do well with that. 

Or the times when you try something new, like Storytime at the library, and meltdown ensues even when the sweetest older lady is telling a story with her sidekick squirrel puppet. It could have been awesome. 

Sometimes I don’t understand. Sometimes I want to ask her questions she can’t quite answer yet. Sometimes I don't want to say anything at all. 

I don’t want to raise a child that has had everything handed to her. Sometimes I fear that is how we are raising her. I want her to learn the lessons of life. I want her to experience everything and be able to choose life for herself. I don’t want to coddle. But then on the flip side, I want her to be my baby forever and come back to me always. Always. 

The push and the pull of motherhood is difficult at times. It’s hard to let go when I need to and sometimes it hard to show up and be there fully when she needs me most. Being a parent is tough sometimes. It’s hard to discover things about ourselves that feel ugly. Parenthood is also the best thing that has ever happened to me and I need to make sure I don’t forget that. 

We need to get her around more kids her age. I need to be able to walk away and let her cry even when it rips my guts out little by little as I walk further and further away. I want her to discover everything and learn through it all. I want the world for her and I need to make sure she has the opportunities to find it and embrace it all. 

Separation anxiety will pass. She won’t always want to live only on grilled cheese sandwiches and goldfish crackers.  She will come to the realization that the lady and her squirrel at Story-time are pretty darn awesome. 

We are both growing. Sometimes that’s hard. Sometimes it not. Sometimes you just have to dust yourself off, get up, and try again. 

Live Simply. Keep Moving.

Pardon the goosebumps. My house is cold today...

I feel under the weather today. My nasal cavity seems to have been inhabited with way too much snot and feels like it’s being hit with a train every hour or so. 

We actually turned our heater on last night and that causes me to look forward to cooler weather. I am not one for hot weather. I sunburn within the first few minutes out in the open without sunscreen. I want to be able to wear jeans, boots, and scarves all year long. I used to pretty much do that in the northwest, give or take a few hot days. It was perfect. 

I want to not be sitting at this computer all day. Yet at the same time I do because I enjoy stuff like this. But, part of me wants to shut off my phone and every other technological thing in our home for a day or two per week. Could I even do that? 

I know I should go downstairs and workout because there is a sleeping baby next to me and that doesn’t always happen this way. My muscles feel tired. My body feels overwhelmed. Once I workout, I never regret it, but the process of actually doing so lately has become a bit of a battle. I want it to just be something that I do, without having to loathe it. I want to eat whole, life-giving foods instead of reaching for the box of crackers and a diet coke. I want what I put into my body to mean something. 

I desire to live with so much less than we do. I think that’s why people living in the Tiny Home Movement are so appealing to me. Do I think that is realistic for us? Not really, but I wish it was. But, we really do have too much stuff and I feel suffocated by it at times. I really don’t need new clothes. I have boxes of them under our bed that don’t fit at the moment but definitely could if I just worked harder at it. We have closets full of stuff that I haven’t touched in two years. We have more than enough. 

The irony of all of my ramblings today is that I have a phrase tattooed on my body that hits home and acts as a reminder to all of these things rumbling around inside of my soul. 

Live Simply. Keep Moving. 

Plain and simple. 

I am at the point in life where I need to move towards these goals: 

1. Eat whole foods. 
2. Move everyday. Whether it’s a workout video, free weights, or a walk with Marin. 
3. Step away from the computer, iPad, and Netflix more often than not. 
4. Get rid of stuff. Learn to live with less.
5. Create a natural beauty routine and stick to it. 
6. Fall back in love with our little home. 

Friday's ramblings....