Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Where have you been?

Right here… where have you been?

Okay, so mostly somewhere between working, cooking spaghetti (again… it's easy and they like it) and reheating Ryan's pizzas, having sleepy tea parties with Mae, playing video games with Richie, tickling Ryan, giving baths, reading stories, and falling asleep on the couch at 8:30 PM. But that's really kind of a cop-out too, although it's likely the truest of concrete answers.

The real reason I haven't been here in a while is that it felt stale.  Was I doing anyone any good, or was I just typing along in some kind of odd ego trip?   And it is really easy to not worry with it.  These things don't write themselves, although the hammering out of my days and worries and joys and fears on the keyboard is quite cathartic.

The more I thought, the more we all have issues.  My problems are not necessarily larger or more important than yours, so what gives me the right to make mine known?  Why would reading about my day help any of you at all?  Worse, what if you're all out there lurking behind the masquerade of a pseudonym, ready to tell me how completely ridiculous I am?  And why do I get so hurt by the thought of how ridiculous you think I am?

But that's just it.  I am pretty ridiculous.  I giggle at the wrong things, mama-bear at the slightest look-crooked at my family, and have an odd distraction with proving that I've made a good choice by going back to work/staying home for ten years/choosing to vaccinate/choosing to let my kids play video games… you can fill in the blank.  The list goes on. I get angry at stupid things.  I choose too often to react instead of respond.  I ignore the wrong things and magnify the wrong things.  And sometimes, I do a pretty darn good job at what I do, both at home and at work.

After hearing from some of you over the last few months, every  now and again, and not in droves… I don't want to give the impression that people are begging me to start this again… it dawned on me that the whole reason I started this was to share so that even one of you might not feel so alone.   This blog was started out of a heart of exhausted desperation to do something.  I couldn't seem to help my own child, so I wanted to help you.  Any of you.  I just wanted to do some good.

Over the years, I started to hear my own voice as a clanging cymbal.  The same drone over and over.  It's hard, it's worth it.  It's exhausting, but it's exhilarating.  It's infuriating at times, but it's also a source of crazy great joy.  There are only so many ways you can repackage the same message.

It's true.  It is the same message.  I love him because I am loved.  He shows me more about God's love every day.  But the telling of the message changes every day.

Somewhere along the way I lost the reason I started.  The message in a bottle to you who need to hear that yes, my child yells at the top of his lungs and beats his head with his fists.  Yes, we go through the ARD meetings and the therapy sessions with a 45 minute drive one way and the missed school/work for this, that, and the other.  Yes, our two younger kids are best friends… but they also fight at times with a ferocity that would frighten Chuck Norris.  We fight.  We argue and say cutting words to each other and then come back and have to repair it… and sometimes it doesn't happen until morning and another couple hours of discussion.

In the beginning, I promised myself (and by extension you) authenticity.  This is how it really is.  A true picture of our life.  Appreciation that your trip isn't the same as mine.  Somewhere along the way, I forgot that every painting is made of brushstrokes.  Every tapestry of stitches.  Every book of words.

Not every one of them is going to be earth shattering to everyone, but one of them might be just what someone needs to put one foot in front of the other.  Sometimes I need to see it all in print so that I can put one foot in front of the other.  It's not a sacrifice or a grand gesture.  It's just some words on a screen similar to the ones that gave me the courage to call it what it is.

It's life.  Sometimes it's hard.  Sometimes it's easy.  And sometimes it's both in the same minute.  Sometimes the trip between easy and hard is nauseatingly fast… and sometimes the easy is so quick after the hard that we're not ready for it.

The mundane… the clanging cymbal… is what I have.  It's what you have.  It's days that make up years.  It's the doing of the laundry AGAIN that clothes us.  The cooking of the food AGAIN that feeds us.  The shopping for the food AGAIN that fills the fridge.  The rehearsals and doing it over and over AGAIN that make the concert.

It's the telling of the same old story on a different day in a different way over and over that paints the picture of our lives.  And whether it's a bestselling book or a blog post with five views, it's a part of what I do.

So get ready to see stories of what we're doing again, and how each day reminds us in different ways of who holds us in His hands.

And to those of you who have so kindly appreciated this little corner of the internet and expressed that to me, thanks for saying something.  I'm so grateful.

Now for baths, bedtime, and to restart the ol' hamster wheel of a weekday.

Thanks be to God for the same-old, long days that make up the years that seem to be going by so very quickly.

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