Saturday, October 20, 2012

Gorgeously Human

I know I’m in trouble when I wake up at 6:00am on a Saturday morning and I am so stressed out that I’m crying by the time it’s 7:00am. And the kicker is? I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.

There is so much going on right now in this life of mine. Oh I know. Whine whine whine. We all have troubles. We all have stress. And I should be grateful and not be hurting like this because compared to many others, I’ve got it easy. I know others fight harder battles. Well, that’s another stressor of mine right there, that guilt of feeling I should be handling all of this better than I am. But the truth is, I can’t be anyone other than who I am. I can do my best to keep everything in perspective, to remind myself of my blessings, and to praise God, but I’m still living with these hauntings. I’m still trying to find my way.

I’ll make a list of stressors for myself later and take a close look at each one. This is how I work to heal my troubles. This is what I do. I hit that wall, I get stressed, I usually cry, I talk it out with one or more loved ones, I write, and then I regroup. I make a list, I make a timeline, I make a plan. And I repeat as necessary.

A friend who noticed my stress the other day wrote me a brief note that said, “Pay attention to you”. The reminder touched me, made me stop and think,  but I also quickly dismissed it. “Maybe later”, I thought to myself. It’s more than procrastination. It’s fear.

But by the grace of God I was reminded this morning that there is no expectation set for me or anyone else that I was put on this earth to be perfect. I am here to learn, to “live through the grace of stumbling". To “demonstrate..through the beauty of...messing up. Often”. I am “gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous”. 

Well, that takes the pressure off a bit. As I work to raise my flawed and fabulous children, who, like their mother, are stumbling along in their lives, who are messing up (perhaps one of them is messing up more consistently than the other two at this current time), I’ll do my best. Forever an “all-too-honest” parent, wife, daughter, sister, teacher, cousin, aunt, individual, I’ll continue to put my cards on the table with my loved ones and I’ll say and do what I think is best. That's all I know to do. I’ll play the best hand I can each and every time and we’ll go from there.

Oh sure, I’ll continue to be hurt. I’ll be disappointed and expect too much from us all.  I’ll continue to get bruises or more serious injuries each time I hit that wall, and maybe someday I’ll run out of tears, or maybe I’ll lose the words to talk or to write, but make no mistake, I’ll regroup, each gorgeously human time.

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