Being Loved

    As I went to the sink to wash my hands I looked up and caught my reflection in the mirror. I smiled because the face staring back at me was one I hadn't seen in awhile. She looked amused, with eyes that twinkled like they knew something. Her face looked tired, yet rested at the same time. Her hair was askew, but playful. The flush on her cheeks captured days gone past; while the lines on her face, like the corners of her eyes that happily crinkled like tissue paper, told a story of life lived. Missing was the dull eyes, the slumped shoulders and the deep, drudging lines of stress and sleep deprivation pulling on her face. Even at the hour where one day imperceivably meshes into another, she looked almost...beautiful.

    Life has been so busy for Justin and I, with school, work, and other obligations. It feels like we hardly see each other anymore. But this weekend, he is mine. We watched a movie together, pretzeled on the couch, legs and arms all intertwined. We laughed at the -isms in our personalities that we have each grown to find endearing. We walked under the inky, black sky of a flawlessly clear night, speckled with stars, and wondered why it had been so long since either one of us looked up? We filled our lungs with the sweet scent of honeysuckle that meandered it's way through the still night air. He listened as I jabbered about the transport I felt to my childhood days on Autumn Ridge Parkway, when that delicate sweetness seeped into my senses. We made plans to take our Little Women strawberry picking once the sun rises and yields a new day. We marveled at the half life lived while our freezer has been devoid of scrumptious, sweet, tart, ruby-red, strawberry freezer jam. (You know life is far too busy when you have subjected yourself to over a year of mediocre, store-bought jam!) We looked into each others eyes and smiled. We kissed like teenagers. We basked in the absolute comfortability of married life. I know him, he knows me. There is no face to put on, no pretense, no uptightness. Just pure, comfortable honesty.

    The man who put the twinkle in my eye, and smooths lines from worry to lines of life, lies next to me in bed right now. Softly snoring ever so slightly, as his chest rises and falls. When I am with him, without distractions, I can feel the burden lift. Life without him weighs me down. Like trying to run against the current of the ocean's waves. With him by my side I can feel those waves start to recede, and each moment is a step closer to dry, warm sand where I can lay and rest without fear in that moment of being swept away. The woman who carries so much responsibility is free to just be the girl he loves.

    As the upturned corners of her mouth caught me off guard and smiled back at me in the mirror tonight, my reflection whispered to me a truth that had escaped me for awhile amidst the stress of life. One that age, circumstance, or life cannot erase. Being loved makes you beautiful.

Project 365 {2013} - Day 202

 

I picked up my Bountiful Basket yesterday morning and it had kale in it! As soon as I laid eyes on it, I started craving this soup I used to make with kale, kielbasa, cannelloni and tortellini in it. So tonight I set about to fulfill my craving. The smell of onion, garlic and thyme filled my kitchen. My cutting board was loaded up with green, leafy kale. Sausage sizzled and popped in the bottom of my pot as it mingled with other flavors. I had butter and eggs coming to room temperature on the counter to make cookies afterwards. Then Justin called to say he was on his way home after being gone most of the week at an event. It just felt right.

What it felt like was normal; which is a fleeting feeling for me as of late. And by as of late I mean since about 2007. I have had this struggle over the past several years, amidst life events and craziness, to feel normal. To feel like me. To feel like the happenings of my day have anything to do with me or my interests. To take the time to feel inspired, even if it is just from the smells of garlic, onion and thyme sizzling in a pot, or think about something besides time management and crisis prevention.

In my mind I always revert back to when I feel like I last "had it together". This unfair standard I hold myself to because honestly, my life was different then. I had two children instead of four, (all of which my world would not be complete without), my full-time job was being a mother and running a home instead of working a full-time job AND being a mother and running a home. Life had not yet made me face some of my scariest fears and I had the ignorance of youth on my side.

I was talking to my dear friend Angie, whom I just love, after church today. She asked me how I was doing and said she had been thinking about me. I told her I felt like I was kind of coming out of a valley I had been in mentally, but was doing okay. She shared with me her own thoughts and struggles on motherhood, life, spirituality and keeping it together. I was so grateful for those big, blue-green eyes staring back at me with nothing but pure honesty and realness filling them to the brim.

I have found that people love for you to see their best, but it takes a true friend to honestly share their struggles to help you feel and see, no matter who you used to be, that you are still "normal". That it is going to be okay and that even if recapturing our ideal seems a long distant destination, it's not a road we travel alone. Even when it feels like you are the only one who has lost their footing on the gerbil wheel of life and are being thrown about mercilessly on it. Others are tha-thunking around right on with you, battling their own struggles or losses.

My goal is to work towards being at peace with the pace of my life. To be more deliberate about taking the time to connect with me. To let things go. To stop worrying so much about making sure I don't disappoint anyone in the fifty million different aspects of my life. To be okay with not being everything to everyone. But to have the courage to keep showing up and trying.

My goal is for my mental ideal to not be some unachievable point in history, but wherever I am currently at in life. To measure myself by who I am now and the victories I am achieving currently. Even if they are as small as not throwing a DiGiorno in the oven for dinner.

To embrace being a work in progress and taking things one day at a time.

Thoughts on Sister Hinckley

“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
-Marjorie Pay Hinckley

The first time I read this quote I was in my mid-twenties. I thought it was a lovely sentiment, but I remembered thinking "I don't know... I wouldn't mind a good manicure and some good looking clothes and a nice car. And being okay with sticky on you? Can't I be a good person and not want sticky on my shirt?"

The long and short of it was, I didn't get it. Of course there is nothing wrong with a good manicure. But what I failed to grasp five or six years ago was the feeling that when you lose yourself in living life, specifically a life in service to God and others, all those other things become peripheral. I failed to understand that you find more joy in helping others than you ever could in solely taking care of yourself.

I just love every bit of the way Sister Hinckley worded that. It gives me a feeling of peace that yes, my van may at times look like a rolling garbage can. Yes, my laundry pile may never be completely conquered. Yes, I may wear the same pants three days in a row...but fulfillment isn't just found in the things the eye can see.

I am okay if some things get put aside so that I can write a family member, or watch a friend's child, or make a pot of soup for someone you care about who is sick or whatever it is. Those are the things that matter. Not a vision of perfection, but the reality of solid relationships. The reality of knowing that this one life we have to live was spent in the ways that really matter.