Shaking off a February Grey
It is the last day of my least favorite month, February. It’s pouring down rain outside and I can hear the torrent rushing over the mud that is my grassless front yard, the heavy drops hitting the chimney like a dull, tone deaf wind chime, the rivulets pouring over the gutters and rushing through the downspouts like some crazy water park slide. All of my little family is sleeping, tenderly laid on soft beds and filling the house with a peaceful, slumbering type of quiet.
It’s fitting that I write this now, as I end a bit of a writing drought, a creativity drought; as I hopefully terminate a period of being a bit adrift.
February is my least favorite month because it is the most depressing. Around here, without what I assume to be the magic of sparkling white snow and instead the occasional ice storm fiasco we are left with overcast skies that leave us devoid of vitamin D and chronically fatigued with nothing to look at except the black skeletons of mesquite trees yet to bloom for spring against a backdrop of drab, dull tones, a vibrancy merely hibernating, waiting to bloom in the coming months. You’re stuck inside because of the cold, or the ice, or the rain, or the flu or some kind of North Texas winter ailment that often seems debilitating and/or unending.
I’m glad it’s almost over. Tomorrow is March 1st and I’m always so happy when that day comes. March brings the hope of spring, sprouts of promise in little clusters of bright green clover, happy sprouts of rye grass, skyward reaching stems of daylilies and irises.
I’ve been adrift because maybe I’ve been measuring my day to day achievements with a bogus measuring stick. Today, my oldest made me laugh, a real laugh and he said, “See?! I can still make you laugh, I knew it!”. It made me stop and think about how often I’d actually laughed, wholly and spontaneously with my kids. The recent frequency of real laughter in my little corner of the world I find depressing and altogether limited. That’s not me and it most certainly is not who I want to be.
Such a thing makes a person evaluate how they are measuring their success. I feel like I’m working so hard to be a better mother, a better friend, a better wife. It’s like a spinning class, pumping away, often motivated and enjoying and in the end getting nowhere.
How do you measure it? How do you measure your worth? Your success, your value? Your goals and whether or not you’ve achieved them?
Are you worth something more if you can fit back into the clothes you wore on your wedding day? How well you count your macronutrients? How long it’s been since you’ve had processed food?
How well behaved your kids are? How often you go to church? How high your kids score or test? How clean your house is? How much money you make? How much you’ve saved in your IRA?
I believe there is a true and very real difference between trying to do this life thing right, good and Godly and letting all of these factors rule over us. They can rule over us. I know it. I’ve let them. I have a voice whispering in my ear that I’m not enough and I need to keep striving to this unknown end, this far away unrealized satisfaction I never seem to grasp and only seem to get farther away from.
Sometimes I’m so focused on how disgusting my house is at the moment that I don’t see how amazing my kids are. I’m a bit ashamed to say that.
Sometimes I look at pictures of me when I was first married, my husband deployed and me with nothing to do after work except work out with a paid trainer and tan. I often feel regretful because I don’t look like that right now. I see myself in the mirror, this ravaged, journey wearied traveler who has birthed children and aged and yet somehow grown horizontally. I tell myself “NO”, this is not ok. You must get yourself together. This is a sign of laziness and weakness.
I see that the house isn’t as clean as organized as I’d like, in fact far from it. I fuss at the kids for being filthy and try to dream up better ways of keeping us clean and healthy in our home. I read the occasional behavior book, I come up with new systems, new chore lists. I laminate them and tell myself, this is it! This is the real deal, the thing that will finally scare away the guilt and the struggle and the constant “trying”. They will ALL FINALLY GET IT!
The house, the husband, the kids, homeschooling, staying healthy and strong, finding the parts of me and my own personal gifts that are of value in my home…. It all becomes overwhelming to me. I feel sometimes that I’m striving, and trying and constantly trying to do better and be better.
The thing is I am not lazy or weak. In all the areas I might find myself lacking, His Grace is sufficient. He covers it all.
I’ve forgotten how to be still and the moments are flying by, those precious moments that I know I will yearn for just a few short years from now. When my daughter asks me to read to her or rub her feet at bedtime. When my oldest son wants to tell me all about his Lego mini figures or my middle child wants to tell me a ridiculous joke/story that he can’t help but giggle through and yet makes no sense to me.
The world tells us that we need to parent better, be healthier, stay more organized, strengthen our marriages, and keep our houses more organized…. In fact there is no shortage of information out there, social media driven or otherwise on how we can be better, how we can live this life better. It doesn’t always, but sometimes that only interprets into “pressure” to me.
Ya’ll, I’m tired. I just want to be me and love these little kids and do the best I can and not feel guilty about any of it. Jesus washed all that guilt away, right? I love God. I read His Word and He has my heart. Can we all just trust Him to make the nonsensical parts of this life mean something? Maybe, cover us in the areas we find ourselves lacking?
It’s time to shake off the grey of this month, of this attitude and embrace joy and hope.
I’m not saying we all just need to give up and become complete characterless losers. I don’t suggest we all become shameless gluttons in sweat pants, nor parents who release their children to live some sort of version of Lord of the Flies, leaving all the training up by the wayside. I would never suggest us abandoning our efforts to strengthen our marriages. If you doubt me, check out my “I am not a Jellyfish” post. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We’re all on a journey. We’ve all got to keep moving.
I just want to relax a little bit, holding true to the basics of God given morality and enjoy the gifts of today. I think scripture leads in that direction.
I mean with all the evil in the world today, plastered on each social media site and touted in the news broadcasts, why am I ignoring the beautiful everyday blessings right here in my lap?
So… there’s been a break in the blog posts for a few reasons. Firstly I’m working on my first novel. (Oh my word, ya’ll I just put that in print and it’s glaring at me on my screen in black and white….) Secondly I’m heading in a new direction with this blog that will hopefully be more fun, more me and more frequent. If you can’t take much more of “me”, I get it. This is more just an outlet for all my crazy thoughts but, if you like reading my little blog, hang in there and thank you! Your encouragement means the world to me!
Meanwhile, you do you. Relax, enjoy the gifts you are given and don’t let Satan whisper in your ear that you are not enough. Jesus made you enough. That’s my focus for this month!
