Mission Exhaustable

Ok, this will probably be my last post for October since we only have about 7 or 8 days left in October. This month has proven without variance that being a woman, mother, wife, referee, chef, cabby, is beyond tiring: It's downright exhausting! One day this month (not very long ago) I had to stop what I was doing because I started watching myself vacuuming the carpet next to me. Then, as I was watching myself vacuum I saw me pick up the baby to nurse and me answer the phone that rang simultaneously. As I was on the phone with my husband who also put in his order for what he wanted at Cafe CeCe, myself put the baby down after feeding,went to the kitchen to wash dishes and start dinner as well as to resolve the twelfth of many domestic disputes that day between small people over which toy out of the cereal boxes belonged to me (no me, no me,no meeeee, no meeeeeeeeeeee, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!). As I hung up the phone and turned down the pots and rinsed out the sink, I looked over at myself vacuuming the carpet, and making up the beds, and mopping the floors and we all shook our heads secretly wishing we could somehow join the circus or at least go to England to find a strapping, young and handsome butler that would work for me in exchange for a Green card. Then, as if a bolt of lightning struck me (I absentmindedly plugged the blender in with wet hands), I had an epiphany. Ding! Pztt-Pztt! Fortunately, the fuse-box blew and I was able to release the plug and realize a few things about my life at that moment. I'll tell you more about it later. . .

The Harried Housewife's Prayer By C.R.Wilson

It seems this world is always full
of things to do and things to be
Put off your hats of rush and worry
Quiet down and Come to Me

Be not harried, hurried, worried
There's a time for everything
In this world you'll always find
Some thing to do, some thing to be

Running here and driving there
Picking toys up from the stairs
Cooking,cleaning, washing, screaming
Come to Me and Cast your cares

Be not harried, hurried, worried
There's a time for everything
In this world you'll always find
Some thing to do, some thing to be

It seems that mayhem, madness, chaos,
Grips and takes us to the brink
Ask for grace to break the bonds and
Take some time to stop and think

You're here today and if you die
There'll be someone to take your place
Let those other Rats keep running
Strive to win a better race

Be not harried, hurried, worried
Life continues though you "sleep"
Live your life with all contentment
Follow God as humble sheep

Be not harried, hurried, worried,
With the Lord you can be free.
Walk with Him and you'll discover
What He'll do and what you'll be.

You, Do You

Ok, This is cool. I have a best friend in CA who is learning how to release the inner Diva or whatever. I absolutely love this chick. We plan to be friends for, like, the rest of our lives! I also love how she has been discovering discovery. Every week there is either an epiphany or a paradigm shift or something. I look forward to her phone calls just so I can hear about her new adventure (or two) for the week. Her life plays like one of those soap operas that get you hooked because they are so surreal to be true, yet the things that happen are true and you just want to write a book about her life so that it would be a bestseller and make you and her loads of money,no really! Anyway, the point of this post is something that she has been telling me that really is starting to make sense and I hope this isn't something she told me not to mention because I would really be screwed. She recently had an epiphany about her life and spirituality: you, do you. I have to give a little background before I move on: She just recently divorced her spouse of 7 years and divorced her church of 29 years. She felt spiritually abused by both of her former partners. It has been uphill for her quite a bit, but as of now I am watching her blossom into this person that has been struggling to bloom for years. I have no doubt in my mind that she is a follower of Jesus Christ. She loves Him though the heavens fall and Hell, Missouri's high waters rise! I also have no doubt that she loves her ex-husband, and that she would try again if he were willing, but I also know what she went through because I was there to listen and pray her through it. Her divorce is not what I want to dwell on though. My best friend has turned "doing her" into a science. She has chosen to become the person that she is destined to be and not what people want to make her. She admits now that it was always people that she used as her barometer to decide what she should do. She married because of what she thought people would think of her. She stayed in a congregation that only used her for their purposes because she was afraid of what people (who didn't really care about her) would say if she left. She held on to pseudo-friends and allowed them to use her because she thought she had to keep people around. She struggled with conforming to a set of social norms she didn't agree with (none of which had anything to do with being a Christian actually) and settling for mediocre relationships in her Faith life, social life and her marriage. She wrestled with the social consequences of leaving both her marriage and her church she attended faithfully her entire life. But now that she has made her choice and actually stepped out on faith she is finding a richness and fullness to her life that she has never had before. She admitted to me that for the first time in years she has had a solid night's sleep every night since she left. She had not been at peace and had real rest in her spirit for all those years. Now that she is following the you do you principle she has found out many things about herself that contributed to her problems: like she tended to choose friends for the sake of having friends, she was in the wrong church for her because it was all she knew, and that she settled for being with a body so that she wouldn't be alone. We both readily admit that being human is messy, but it is so much better than denying our humanness and striving for self made perfection. Now she allows God his proper place in her heart and is more open to His leading. Now that she is "doing her" in Jesus: she has had to cut some of those ties that choke her loose, she is choosing to be alone but not lonely in order to let God choose with whom to share her life, and that she really, really likes clothes and accessories. No seriously, it's chronic. It's almost serial. This is the same girl who recently went shopping for a white blouse to wear to an interview and somehow a dress, shoes, clutch purse, and matching jewelry followed her out of the mall in addition to the white shirt. This is also the girl that after finding the church home she wants to join needed a new outfit for the moment she goes up to the front to sit in the chair. You didn't hear me: She needs an outfit for the chair! She's a "hot mess" I tell you. But I admire her for finding her way. Yes, I was startled for a moment because many of her changes seemed so drastic and I wasn't so sure where they were going to lead her (Actually,I was pretty sure it was hell in a hand-basket), but all in all both she and I know she's in good hands. . .

Ok sooo. . .

Ok sooo, here I am again posting after three months of silence. It's not that I don't have anything important to say but I think I've become a harried housewife. You know, too much to do and adding on more because it wouldn't feel actually right to slow down. I can't sit down because there are dishes to wash, clothes to wash and to iron, children and spouse(s) to feed, baby to nurse, carpets to vacuum, beds to make, floors to mop and wax, and when and if all of that is done somehow I must make myself not look like the bride of Frankenstein's Monster by washing and curling my hair, putting on matching clothes that don't start with "sweat" and if for no other reason than to avoid being followed by strange and otherworldly smells, I must take a shower. If I can manage all of those things before midnight I can go to bed only to begin the circus all over again around 5:30 in the morning. Now with all that said: How on earth under heaven did I find the time to write this? Simple. It is my vent. If I don't write my mental illness called life will get out of control and my brain will implode. Writing is my Valium. Writing allows me to balance the chemicals for a lot less than the cost of a Prozac or Opium and I can look back on what ever I was venting about and laugh, cry or whatever because life circumstances never, ever last forever. Life is constantly changing and I am learning to adapt with Grace: Day by day, moment by moment. So if you are feeling like a harried housewife, a harassed husband, a convoluted companion, whatever. Find your vent. Save your brain.

Lots To Think About

Wow! It's been a year since I've posted on this blog and I am not as deeply ashamed of myself as I was for the other blog I have that I have not posted on in TWO years, but I am ashamed nonetheless. I was looking back over some of the things I wrote to myself to unknown others and I couldn't help but smile at how deep thoughts can run when you allow yourself to be open and free about what it is you feel and think. I've had so many life changes in the last year that I don't know if I actually processed them all appropriately. A new job come and gone, a new baby, a new kind of spouse (same guy, different behavior), a new outlook on where I'm going and how, and the realization that I just might be a little older and possibly a little wiser. I'm finding that not everything I want in life is really "it." I thought I wanted two children and that was all I could handle. Amazing how the stretched mind and body can be much more flexible than previously believed. I thought I needed a job in order for my husband to respect me and to give me the proper support. Isn't it something when you add more to your plate and discover that what you thought you wanted and what you actually want and get are remarkably different. I handled having a job and raising two and a half children the best way I could. I felt ashamed when I didn't succeed as I thought I should have and wondered if I was destined to "just" be a good mom and stay out of the gladiator's arena called career. But time at home with my three boys has proven a mighty healer and wonderful deliverer. The fact is, I AM a good mom. I AM a good employee. I AM a good wife. And even (more like especially) when I'm not trying to be; I AM a good person. None of those labels define me in and of themselves, yet without them I cannot be myself. This year is a very interesting one for me. I plan to do what I have always wanted to do. I'm going to write: More and more, day by day. Pretty soon I hope to get published somewhere. Even if not forever as a career, I want to do it just so that I can say I did it and I can do it. Even as I say that, in my heart I know I am a writer and if it were my only choice, I'd feel like I'm getting the better end of the deal. Anyway, Look up!