Thursday, March 28, 2013

On growing up and making friends

I wrote this last week. Enjoy!

Yesterday, as I was picking Lily up from a friend's house after teaching flute lessons, we started talking. At some point I told her, "I am just waiting for my life to finally start." 

She said, "This is it."

True. This is it. This is my life, warts and all. I really do have some wonderful things going for me, and I couldn't be happier with my family. I have the best husband and daughters a girl could ever want. They far surpass my wildest dreams. 

I am not sure what I even mean when I say I am waiting for my life to start. I talked with Robbie about this early this morning to try to figure it out. I suppose I am waiting for a time where we'll mostly just be able to coast along without any huge worries or burdens. I expect that we'll have trials along the way, but I guess I have this naive idea that perhaps we'll get to this point where things won't feel so overwhelming. 

Sometimes I look around at other people and think that they are doing so well. They seem to have it all together. I realize what I am seeing is what they WANT me to see. Most people do not care to air their dirty laundry. Most people want to look good. And a lot of the time, at least I do this, we are comparing our private worst with others' public best. I don't know what anyone else is struggling with. I know everyone has to have something. I sometimes wonder how others are doing and how they feel about how they are doing. 

On an unrelated note, I think I am finally starting to accept the fact that I am a wife and mother. I think I have been resisting this fact for awhile. Instead of a mother, I felt like a girl who just happened to have a baby. Now I have babies. Instead of a wife, I felt like a girl that just happened to have a husband. I resisted doing responsible and grown-up MOTHERY type things. For example, a lot of adults do the grown-up thing and put their dishes in the dishwasher immediately after eating. Well, poo on that. That was a loathsome chore of mine growing up. I still haven't gotten the hang of that. Some people do dishes after each meal and especially after dinner. Yuck. My method of doing dishes has always been when the sink gets full, do them. Usually I have to do them once or twice a day when I get a spare 10-20 minutes. I have always lacked discipline when Robbie is home because I would much rather spend my time with him than doing icky responsible things like doing dishes or folding laundry. But with two kiddos now, I sorta have to do icky responsible things when he is home or we will be overcome with dishes and laundry. 

Something else has happened to me too. It started about the last two weeks during my pregnancy with Kimberly. I've been baking. Yes. Me. Baking. I don't recognize myself! Just tonight I baked two loaves of pumpkin bread for MOPS tomorrow AND I didn't procrastinate. What's up with that? I won't be running around like a crazy person in the morning trying to bake pumpkin bread. It's done. Who is this lady that has taken over my body?

MOPS. What is MOPS? It stands for Moms of Pre-schoolers. It's sort of like play group, only some other people watch the kiddos while the mamas get together for talking, breakfast and fellowship. I have been twice so far and love it. I have felt the need to try to make mom friends, and this seems to be a good way. I feel kind of like a loser saying this, but my best mom friend from church moved away several months ago, and I still have a vacancy. I'm not very good at allowing people to get close to me, but I feel like we became really good friends. Now I miss her like crazy. I need a new mom friend to hang out with again. I am accepting applications! 

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