Sunday Night Reflections

Each day brings us new thoughts, new happiness, new woes.  This past week taught me something, it was an epiphany that hit me right between the eyes.  At first I thought maybe it was just a moment of inspiration that would dissipate as quickly as it arrived.  But it didn’t, it’s still here in my brain.  It’s kind of a long epiphany that started with the passage in a book and I’m not sure how I can summarize it without sounding like I’m the drunk guy at the end of the bar who is in love with everything. 

I’m definitely not drunk, by the way.

Early in the week I read a passage in a book from the perspective of a naive girl describing a woman she admired…

“…an initial acceptance of herself as she was and so of other people with their foibles. And so she did as little scolding or criticizing of others for their foolish behavior or their sins as anyone I had ever known.  It was not that she was willing to compromise with wrongdoing or poverty or ignorance, just that she was a long step ahead of wasting emotional energy on fretting.  And she never put pressure on the rest of us to accept her opinions.  The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything.  She was- that was all. And her stance toward life seemed to say: God is-and that is enough.”

Maybe the exact moment in time in which I read this crossed perfectly with the exact moment in time in which my chaotic life was ticking along.

I have an extreme life. 

This is no surprise within our family, my husband has a demanding job- he travels extensively both in and out of the country.  I will never say I am used to this nor that I don’t mind because from the bottom of my heart I mind.  At the same time this is what it is.  And what it is… is life.

And we have a great life.  The intensity only adds to this and this is where the epiphany comes in. 

Only it’s hard to put it into words.

Most of my life I have suffered with anxiety.  And I deliberately use the word suffer as it is a physical pain to carry around anxiety.  When you carry around anxiety usually you carry around other stuff, too. 

It’s like I am growing up and can finally comprehend that endless worrying is wasteful of me. 

It’s not up to me to worry, to judge, to be opinionated.

Just as I don’t have to think about anyone in a negative way.  People will judge me but it really has nothing to do with me at all.

It’s just fine to live this extreme life and let Henry eat cereal for dinner in his underwear. 

 

All these years I’ve spent being shy and anxious when ironically I really love people.

I am who I am, I don’t need to carry the past within the present. 

I will never be tall.

I will never be a ballerina.

But I will always be a mother to my children,

and a wife to Ken.

The happiness that gives me is all I need to carry within my heart.