I have actually struggled knowing where to start this post in order to say what I feel in my heart needs to be said. I have started and stopped and revised and erased it several times. But I feel so strongly about it that I just have to get it out! So please bear with me as I get to “the heart of the matter” that I want to share today.
I have four small children. They are 4, 4, 2, and 5 months. Yep. Four children under age five. When my twins came, I was the most devoted mother ever! They were my world! I ate, slept, breathed, talked, laughed, sang, and dreamt for my little babies. As crazy as those first few years were, as much of a blur as they sometimes are, they were BEAUTIFUL years. I loved them! I did everything with my babies that I wanted to. I had a jogging stroller for them to take them on runs and walks every day. We read stories. We sang songs. We had a schedule. We had a clean house. We did laundry together — me folding it, them throwing it over their heads and laughing as they turned around to throw it back the other direction. There were times I wanted to pull my hair out, times when I was so busy that I didn’t even have time to remember I HAD hair, and time when my hair was perfectly done and perfectly put together. My life experienced a little of all of the above as well.
Then I had foot surgery. And got pregnant with baby #3. And moved to Los Angeles County, California. My life changed so much. I no longer had hands enough for my children. I didn’t feel safe going for walks in the streets or even taking them to the library because homeless men followed us home one time. The heat, my husband’s commute to work and crazy schedule, all of it led to me locking myself in my house and only leaving to go grocery shopping or to a church function or doctor’s appointment. I began to feel as trapped by motherhood as I was by my four walls. Everything about life became a task to complete. And I lost myself — totally and completely lost myself. Our budget didn’t allow for many babysitters or nights out. Nor did my husband’s schedule. Even having someone come over became a chore of having to clean the house, get dressed, to my hair, and at least appear to be a functioning human being instead of a wreck! When I found Isagenix, it changed a lot of things for me. But that’s not what this post is about.
Fastforward a few years. Add in another child to the mix. I am ashamed to admit it — but this last little baby was really me acting in faith on a prompting that he needed to come . . . NOW! Maybe you don’t believe in that, maybe you can’t relate. Maybe you feel like the above-outlined feelings should have trumped that prompting, and I had no business getting pregnant when I was feeling so low and out-of-control (or in my case just starting to feel like ME again, just getting my body and hormones and energy levels and nutrition back to normal for ME). Maybe you’ve been there yourself and felt all of the above, like I have. Maybe you acted on the prompting. Maybe you told it to wait. I acted on it. Again I got incredibly sick with my pregnancy. And again we moved right in the middle of it. Again I moved to a place that, in order to manage everything on my plate, left me boxed between my four walls.
So why do I tell you all of that? And what is the purpose of this post?
I have finally reached a point where I have been able to take a step back from myself and my life. I am able to see a bigger picture. I feel more confident in the way things have played out and the timing of it all, even HARD THINGS that happened in the moment and felt completely impossible. I am finally at a place where I am learning HAPPINESS! I am seeing that so much of my UN-happiness came from a lot of burdens of perfection that I placed on myself. I wanted to do as much for Baby #3 as I did for the Twins. But the snowball effect of that is that I simply could NOT! Not because I wasn’t “good enough” but because my LIFE was DIFFERENT! What was in my power and means to do during one situation and set of circumstances simply was not possible in my next situation. And as I held onto the “shoulds” of the past and what I thought society (or family members or friends) expected of me, I was MISERABLE just trying to keep up with it all! Things changed again, and again I was MISERABLE, feeling guilty all the time about the things I was NOT doing and couldn’t quite pull together.
What do you think that did to me as a person? To my little family? To my marriage? To my relationships?
Yesterday, as I was visiting with a friend about another change that is coming up in our family, about how I was feeling like that change would make me a failure or not as good of a mother as I needed to be for my children, she stopped me dead in my tracks. She reminded me that my life was about being HAPPY! And guilt and happiness do not co-exist in our hearts! Nor do guilt and resentment and fear lead us to fulfill our full potential, be who and what we were meant to be, and create a meaningful, purposeful life.
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