It was the awards breakfast for our office, and it was lovely...eggs and fruit, french toast, and pulpy orange juice... people I like, laughter, encouragement and thanks.
at the lake with our three youngest kids
My life is so different from what it was like two years ago, and mostly all in good ways.
(Not that it was so bad then...just a bit ingrown. Plus there were no awards, even though I have done some very hard things--the rewards are real though.)
There is balance and a bit of personal space now and we've all probably benefited very much from this.
I'm more patient with the kids, less resentful in general. It's not that I was very mean then either, but sometimes I'd realize I was gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. (a sign of supreme annoyance.)
I'm rarely resentful now about anything anymore. It's okay. Really okay.
oh my gosh, those babies were so cute. that summer was once in a lifetime, time suspended.
I wish I would have known because I could have had a job years ago, but I had no idea what the problem was. I thought it was me, a lack of patience and gratitude on my part.
No,it turns out, not really, just the limits of human patience and emotional fortitude.
I was living in a sea of beautiful babies, funny kids, with a devoted husband, and yet sometimes felt so fried and cranky. Of course somebody needed something all the time,and if all else failed, then there was always the ever-popular poopy diaper. But not anymore. We haven't had diapers here for several years.
I probably needed to get out more then than I do now, actually.
It's okay to have limits, not that it wasn't okay to stretch mine. It was. I know things about myself that you never find out, can never appreciate unless you've been there and faced your stuff.
But breakfast at a restaurant with other agreeable adults, a sparkling glass of orange juice in bright February sunshine? Mmm, mmm, mmm.
It provides balance to the funny breakfast we had yesterday in our pajamas--kids and me with crazy bed hair, valentine candy and diet coke. (One candy had coconut in it. That must count as a fruit or vegetable or something.) Both are great. I don't want to trade either one. love, Val
Yeah,Val. You needed an Olympic gold medal all those years. No. I'll amend that. You needed an medal AND a podium to stand on while all the world cheered for you. We all need that, we moms. It's an invisible job. Until they go out into the world and everybody sees what a GOOD JOB we did.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Becka