Thursday, June 20, 2013

Not happy

So let's talk about expectations, specifically about changing them.  That has been my biggest struggle since... always.  I've been programmed to believe that you should never be happy where you're at, you should always strive for more.  Can I just stop here and call bull----?  Should people have goals and aspirations?  Absolutely, but let's have some boundaries people!  Paul writes in the forth chapter of Philipians "I have learned to be content with whatever I have.I have learned to live on almost nothing or with everything.  I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.  For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."

Why is that truth so hard to grasp?!  When we decided I should stay home with the kids, we adjusted.  Went back to college, adjust.  Aspergers, adjust.  Homeschool, adjust.  So life has been one big adjustment after another and I strongly suspect everyone elses' life is too.  To be honest, those big adjustments are easy, a cake walk, compared to the everyday expectations we place on ourselves.

This year is a perfect example.  We had a rough start to the year, not bad-just rough, but that was okay because we're homeschoolers so we can make up the time.  Then a job opportunity came up and we moved in November.  Then the holidays and trying to make it special for the kids without being able to see their friends and family.  Then our little love bug was born, and the whole time I have been determined to plow through through and get school done.  I have done a fraction of what I set out to do at the beginning of the school year.  Not only that but my house is a disaster area and try as I might I cannot seem to get on top of it.  My husband has come home to see me in tears because I just wanted to get the dishes done and the laundry put away.  I just wanted.....dh would strike those words from my vocabulary if he could.  He gives me ten kinds of a hard time when our six year old says those same words she's heard her momma say. Add to the craziness I have what the books call a 'high-need' baby.  Very rarely can I put her down without her screaming. very very rarely will she fall asleep without nursing, and when I say screaming I mean back arching, ear piercing, head throbbing, screaming.  While I've tried wearing her to get stuff done, it just ends up being a pain so expectations get adjusted.  Maybe someday I'll learn to not be so hard on myself and be content but until then I'll just be content with my patient husband who, fortunately, doesn't care what the house looks like.  And since the dishes have to be done the kids and I have taken to looking at each other and saying, "she's not happy Bob, not. happy."

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