I’m so glad to be a part of the Access WDUN team and I’m happy to be writing my first blog. The very first. Numero uno. The premier. No pressure, right? Actually it sounded like fun until I was asked to name the durn thing. Hmm… It’s gotta be something that sums up myself and that I’m o.k. sticking with for awhile. Oooohhh the pressure.
So I started thinking about my life - my messy, chaotic life. I also asked myself, “what do I want you to know most about me?” And that’s it. I want you to KNOW that my life is sticky, quite literally sticky, and messy, and complicated.
Here’s the truth about me, despite the social media profile photo where my kids and I are all dressed up after Easter service looking our finest, I’m the mama who has stuff falling out of the car in the parent drop-off line at school. I don’t like to cook and cleaning doesn’t put the “zing” in my life, either. We probably watch too much t.v. and I don’t sell essential oils. I’m forty (plus) and haven’t figured out how to wash my face at night, and sometimes, I confess, I even fall asleep before I’ve brushed my teeth. My family is loud. The kids aren’t always well behaved. We hug a lot, we laugh a lot, and I have to say, “I’m sorry,” a lot.
You see, it’s hard being a mama in 2020. Wait, you’re not a mama?! O.k. so, let me rephrase that.. I think it’s hard being ANYONE these days. It’s always been hard, but I think the pressures are even worse now, thanks to social media. With every perfect family’s perfect profile photos (and yes, I know I used the word “perfect” twice there), my life could potentially feel a little “less than.” Every person who posts pictures from their amazing ski trips in Europe could force my focus on how it’s been two years since we’ve gotten away for even one night. Their photos of their kids’ toys make me wonder if my kids need that too. If you’re single, it seems everyone is married. If you’re broke, it seems everyone else is rich. If you hate the cold, everyone else is somewhere warm.
But behind the perfect posts is a deeper reality: we are all just in this together. We are all just trying to figure out how the pieces fit together. We are all more than what you see on the surface.
Even those who actually do have it together for an oh-so-brief-moment can probably tell you, as soon as you “get there,” life switches everything up and you have to start all over again. We are all just learning and growing and starting over new in some area or another. That happens to all of us.
Behind every perfect photo is a story that we probably won’t ever really know. But I want to tell my story. I want to commit to being honest about how “picture UNperfect” I am in everything I do and write. I’m here to remind you, you’re normal. Your messy life is normal. Your imperfections are far more normal than the perfections we tend to see.
How exactly do you sum all this up with a blog title? I thought about the name, “Everything but the Kitchen Sink” – because I spend a lot of time at the sink doing a lot of thinking. But also, my kids quite literally put the dirty dishes on EVERYTHING BUT the kitchen sink.
I thought about calling it, “From the Carpool Line,” but truthfully I let my kid ride the bus and even if I was in the carpool line, I wouldn’t have a quiet moment as the other two would be screaming. The baby tends to yell, “Stuck!” if she’s in her carseat too long. (“Stuck” is only one of eight words that she says, if that tells you anything.)
Truthfully, I don’t have a lot of quiet places to think. Even the bathroom is no safe haven for a mom of three (which made me briefly consider the title, “My One-Ply Life,” but the visual there may be too inappropriate for more sensitive readers).
I do most of my thinking, and praying, in the nighttime – the only time our house is quiet. That’s when the song, “Livin’ on a Prayer” came to me, and while that’s exactly what most of my days feel like, I don’t want to deceive anyone into thinking I like 80’s rock music. Maybe it was that I was a little too young in that era, but I prefer the late 90’s. And there’s no good 90’s music with good names. “Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls” – what does that even mean? Who doesn’t love a good waterfall? The other options didn’t seem that great either, although living with toddlers, “MmmmBop” might just apply, though I can’t exactly say why.
Another thing you should know, I get distracted easily.
I just want to be perfectly honest that when I’m tired and kids are hungry, I just might throw them some peanut butter crackers and count it as protein. In fact, I’m mostly living on peanut butter and prayer – the two things I can’t live without.
Some days we are thriving, but most days we are just surviving. When we are all tired and hungry and walking in the door exhausted, we turn to peanut butter. And when I’m tired and exhausted emotionally (which is basically always), I turn to prayer. I’m a messy, imperfect person just trying to figure out the pieces – just like I think you are.
Peanut butter helps me to be a better mama, but so does prayer. So, here goes my honest, sticky life and maybe the stories behind my perfect photos will give you the freedom to realize you’re not in it alone. We are all in this together.
