Some stuff to think about

This post originated from http://badmommymoments.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/grateful/ which I caught through a link from the Mommy Blog Network. Since mostly Moms read my blog, I am passing this on. Please check out her actual blog. I don't know this woman, but it doesn't matter, does it? The truth is the same.

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grateful

Four weeks ago today I was obsessing about how to keep from personally disappearing in May when THREE was born. How to get all three kids out of the bigger car that we’d have to buy and somehow make it through the grocery store without melting down myself.

That was the day I found out that I miscarried.

So a lot has changed.

I’ve learned how to accept help. I’ve had wonderful people surrounding me for years, but until four weeks ago, I never asked any of them for help. It was interesting to learn just how proud I was to believe that I could do everything myself. Maybe I can do it all, but I don’t want to anymore.

I’ve reevaluated what I have. I’ve always believed myself to be a lucky girl. Not as in, “boy, I’ve got good luck,” but as in God has blessed me with an amazing family, a home, a passion for writing and outlets to create. But now I understand that I need to take time each day to believe that what I have and who I am is good. That He’s done everything for a reason. That I may never “get” that reason, but that it’s okay.

I’ve realized that it’s too easy to get bored with being home. To look around the house and only see what needs to be cleaned. To trudge into the kitchen to cook something, anything. To think that if I have to play one more game of Candyland or listen to Banana Phone one more time that I’ll really melt away this time. My life, and everything I have is gift. And if I don’t properly maintain myself, it will feel like a weight. But it doesn’t have to.

I’m continuing to learn value of slowing down. When life flips inside-out twice in a span of three weeks, it all blurs together. Everything is dizzy. And suddenly I realized that everything I once considered “a blur,” really wasn’t. And the things that seemed to drag were actually already gone. They are never coming back. I don’t want to remember them only in photographs.

And I’ve learned that I don’t have to entertain guilt. Guilt is impossible to see at first because it’s almost invisible, it’s normal. But when allowed to flow, it seeps out and corrodes what it touches. I know what happened is not my fault. That even though I didn’t want to be a “mother of three,” I know I would have loved THREE and gotten over myself. I also know that it’s okay that I think about THREE less and less. That I shouldn’t feel guilty because I’m not sad all the time anymore. That part of healing is letting go. That doesn’t mean I’ll forget. I’ll never forget.

But it feels good to feel good.

To be happy in the morning when I wake up.

To look at my husband and see him the way I did in college.

To take time each day to focus on how amazing and fascinating my children are.

To meditate on the heart of God. Who I thought He was before and who I believe Him to be now.

To work on the balance between who I am as a mother/wife and who I am as a person.

Because I now have a better understanding of what’s important.

And that it really is okay not to do it all myself."