What I've been thinking about

January is zipping by.  And also dragging.  I feel like I'm in a surreal world broken up by time spent resting my knee, healing.

It is zipping because I am not doing all the normal stuff.  And that's also why it's dragging.

(It doesn't make sense.)

My mom called me after my last blog post about Mark.  She said she knew whether I had won or lost.  "You lost,"  she said. "Don't be blackmailed by Mark."

I guess in a contest between her daughter and her shyster grandson, the daughter wins.  Or maybe she just doesn't want her grandson to continue to be a shyster.

(I still don't want him to play football.)

I've been thinking about an email exchange between Adam and Braeden.  They were writing about me and commenting on how my self confidence doesn't match my capabilities.  (Which was nice of them to say.)  I told Olivia about it and wondered aloud why all my siblings have so much more self confidence than I do.  They're hands down the most confident people I know.

Olivia scoffed.  "You're confident!" she said.  "Of course you are!"

Which is exactly what my mom would say.  They can't fathom not being confident.  It's like if I tried to convince them there's no gravity.

It is very comforting to have a group of people believe in you so thoroughly that the only thing they doubt is your self doubt.

I went to book club Thursday night.  I feel wary there.  I don't fit.  I'm one of the oldest ones and they all know each other--a lot of them went to high school together.  I want to fit because I know book clubs can be a magical place.  So I'm persevering.  Someday I'll fit?

We read Where'd You Go Bernadette.  It was my second time reading it.  I read it several years ago but since I never remember what I read, I read it again.  Adam was out of town that night so I went to bed with the words from book club rolling around in my head.  Some of the conversation had been about our identities, which someone said tend to get swallowed up in motherhood.  Most of them are in the intense physical stage of motherhood where you can't use the bathroom uninterrupted and going to the grocery store alone is an unheard of luxury.

Your identity maybe does get a little swallowed up but then you get on the other side of it and you are left scratching your head and wondering what just happened? And how can I get those people to be little again?

And you're also really glad that it's easier in so many ways now, but forever startled by how hard it is in other ways.

I went from a busy mother of toddlers and babies to a busy homeschooling mother and now I still find plenty to do in the day, but it's just so different. 

I started feeling like maybe I needed to do more with my life (probably because I haven't been working at full capacity and it's frustrating).  Maybe I need a job or something to point to and say, "That is what I do."


Then I thought some more (remember Adam was not here to save me from myself) and realized that instead of more stuff to do, maybe I need to better remember my purpose.

Right now, part of my purpose is to serve.  I serve my family, in little ways they don't recognize if I'm doing my job right.  They mostly don't notice the clean laundry or vacuumed floors or stocked cupboards and I'm OK with that.  I like meeting their needs.  I serve Braeden with letters and emails and prayers.  I serve the Young Women at church.  They take up a lot of my brain power and time.

This is serving season (and knee healing season).  I'm grateful for the time I'm given every day.  I'm grateful for the luxury of being home when my family crosses the threshold.  I'm grateful to be the one who gives Mark a ride (and no longer has to give Emma a ride).

I'm grateful to be me.

The other day on the phone, I said to Janet, "It's hard to be a person."

That's true.  But it's also great to be a person.