Stops and Starts

So, yeah, it’s been quiet here for a couple weeks.  After that flurry of blogging mania (ooohhhh, a whole three posts…impressive) – silence.   Well, not really silence on my end.  Just on yours.  Well, on your receiving end that is.  What I am trying to say is, my blogging silence signified a whole big mess of noisy crazy in my own world that left my computer screen blank and my head spinning.  Or (my head) on screen saver.  Depended on the moment.

My health, my house, my boys, my marriage, my whatever it is I fill my days with, all got the better of me and steam rolled me… again.  I have such good intentions.  I do!  So many lofty ideas, projects, notes to write…a list of grandiose (and not so grandiose) intentions.  Right now my life is one of stops and starts.  A frenzy of activity followed by a mighty crash.  The biggest accomplishment some days?  A shower.  And not even the shaving legs kind.  My illness is acting up and getting all sassy on me.  And so are my kids.  In my attempts to tame the tornadoes swarming around me I neglect my inner life.  My writing.  My reading.  My praying.  My just plain being.  That’s when I fall flat on my makeup-less face.

The crazy thing is I know better.  I know that it is when life is the craziest that I need to be the most intentional.  I need to make time for the quiet.  But, lists win out.  OR… I get so overwhelmed and my body aches so much and my leaky saggy brain has me on a perpetual choppy boat ride that I crawl under my covers to escape into sweet sleep.  Don’t get me wrong.  Sometimes sleep is the right answer.  But not all the time.  Before I sat down to write this verbal deluge of inner angst I fought the urge to chuck it all and go to bed (and watch one more episode of Criminal Minds – man, I love that show).

The truth is that right now my world is chaos.  My house is chaos.  My schedule is chaos and thrown by an uncooperative body, children who don’t care one hoot about my plans, and simply the phase of life my family is in.  That is okay.  It’s got to be okay.  I’m trying to embrace the crazy.  Accept the unpredictability.  Harness the present and hold onto it with all my might because I won’t get this time back.  I’m just having a hard time accepting the fact that I am not the put-together mama I always imagined I’d be.

Not too long ago a mama-friend of mine said, “You know, I used to be intimidated by you.  I thought you were this super-organized, all put together mom whose house was always clean and was on top of everything.  But, then I got to know you and realized you were as big of a mess as me! Maybe even a bigger mess!” (To be fair, I did forget this mama’s kid at carpool.  Go ahead and judge.  You should.  That was awful.)

Um…thanks?  I think?  Hey, at least my mess makes someone feel better (except for that whole forgetting her kid part).  I wonder how many of those mama’s that I feel intimidated by would turn out to be a secret mess like me (Although I really don’t think my mess is that secret.  Hurricane Townsend is hard to miss.)  Personally, I think their nails are way too manicured and clothes are way too cute and trendy for that to be the case, but maybe…

How much of my energy am I wasting by feeling guilty about my mess?  About the constant stops and starts in my life.  The two steps forward, gazillion steps back. It’s a joy killer.  It strangles the fun and purpose out of my days.  It makes me want to hide.  (And drink bourbon.  Who am I kidding, I always want to drink bourbon.)

I’m desperately trying to hold onto the present.  Be honest with myself when I feel my intentionality slipping away and grace-filled when I drop a ball (again) because I am just too damn tired to catch it.  I’m trying to remember that this too shall pass.  The emotions I think will never go away are in reality fleeting.  This season is but a chapter in my story.  It is shaped by the previous chapters and informs the one’s to come.  But it is not the whole and should not be treated as such.

I want to rock my story.  I want to rock it good.  I have no idea what that story exactly is or how I will tell it but I don’t want to trudge through the sentences, paragraphs and chapters of my story – I want to get all “Gangnam Style” on it.  This is the only story I have and while I am not in control of much of the setting I am in control of how I play the part.

Now the challenge is holding onto this in the daily minutia.  I’m great at getting zen and on my knees and staying all present when the big crises hit.  I’m a cool cucumber when the excrement really hits the oscillating unit (keeping it classy here, folks).  But in the every day pounding of life — I frenzy and fret my joy away.  I let it suck the life out of my soul and my story goes flat.

So, I will try again.  I will start again and forgive myself for my stops.  God promises me He is not done with me and won’t stop molding until I am back to His factory default before this fallen world got a hold of me.  In the meantime, I will try to have my story sing His song.  Rockin’ out all the way.

“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”  ~Phil. 1:6