Can I just be real with you for a minute?
No. I mean REALLY real. Like the kind of real you don’t tell a lot of people because then they’ll know you’re a certifiable crazy lady.
Okay. Lean in. Here it goes.
I. Don’t. Know. What. I’m. Doing.
I don’t. Not even a little bit.
I don’t know how to parent right or be a proper wife. I can’t dress myself because 37 doesn’t look like 22. I don’t brush my hair enough or even separate dirty laundry by colors.
I promise you that I am faking every second of my life. Not because I’m not being authentic, because I think I’m about as transparent as it gets.
I just don’t have it all figured out…or any of it really.
See, I’m no longer the wide-eyed 17 year old girl who thought she could take on the world anymore than I am an 80 year old grandma who can look back with fond memories of family and vacations.
I’m stuck in the middle where it all seems messy and hard; where nothing makes total sense and every decision feels more like a ‘maybe’ than a clear yes or no.
I mean, I love my kids but sometimes I wonder if there is a return policy. I would die for my husband but when I see his dirty work clothes BESIDE the hamper I want to gouge out my own eyes. I love Jesus but I don’t think I’m going to hell because a curse word slips out. But how can this all exist at once!?
So, naturally, I feel like I’m failing–like I’m messing it all up. Don’t you?
But here’s the thing, friend. I think this part–the messy maybe moments– is where life is really made. Because it isn’t about where you end up as much as what you did with the time in between; how we react to the ‘hard’ and what we do when it doesn’t all add up. That’s when we learn and grow and when our testimonies become parts of someone else’s survival guide.
Because we WILL make it through.
So for now, in the messy time of being a 37 year old extreme parent, mama of two, wife of an adventure seeking free spirited husband while I’m over here color-coding our lives, woman who never knows how the bills will get paid, person who has switched careers a dozen times, and chaser of dreams…I will choose today to just do what’s next.
It might be right and it might not…because there in lies the messy maybe.
I don’t have it all figured out and I don’t pretend to know.
But I know that as long as I’m moving forward, being authentic, choosing kindness, and loving everyone along the way, that one day when I’m 80, hopefully this messy part will seem like it finally makes sense. ❤️
#extremeparenting #extremechildren #parent #specialneeds #messymiddle #nextstep #idontknowwhatimdoing #beauthentic #bekind #truth #chasedreams #loveothers #believe
