Inspiration

I used to be a runner.  Ran in HS & all through college.  Continued on sporadically to my first marathon.  It was hard, really hard.  Then it tapered off.  I tried again when the first one was young.  Ran a few halfs, got under two hours, but then more children came.  Little time to run, but more likely, little inspiration.  It's hard to get back; a few miles hurt.  But not just physical hurt.  I'd lost my inspiration.  There's the heat and the sweat pouring down within the first few minutes (oh, how I despise south Florida), and the lack of something...beauty I guess.    I've been getting "Runners' World" again.  Within the first few pages is the "Rave Run".  It sounds so beautiful, rave run.  I don't have that, rave - there's sun beating down and pavement.  Little more.  My goal for the new school year is to find my rave run.  Where can it be?

My daughter is struggling; she’s so unsure of herself and thinks we are against her.  Where do I go with this?  She is a product of me and my parenting.  She is influenced by her father who has taken his clues from me, for lack of any better source.  He seems to see me when I am struggling most, when the day has wore me down and there is little left of any patience I could have had.  I am more frustrated with myself for not being stronger, for wasting too much of my time on me and not giving it away to those more needy.  I want to engage and connect with my kids.  Not to be their friend, but to mentor them, to train them up in the way they should go.  But I so just want to be left alone.  Just leave me alone, give me my time, my leisure.  I try to remember when I had that.  It was lonely, and I wasn’t really all the more productive.  It still took me four years to paint my living room.  Never did finish that trim.  My inherent laziness comes out.  I don’t want to be responsible, and I surely don’t want to keep working when everybody else doesn’t have to.  Yes, it took the kids 12 hours to clean their room, but I’m still not done.  I tried to pawn it off on them.  Bribery didn’t work, cold hard cash wasn’t enough.  How can I direct them down the good path, when I’m such a poor example of the way I should go?  I partake judgment on myself.  I see myself in them, all the nasty, biting language.  All the conviction of the wrongs is reflected in them, right back to me.  They are a clear mirror of how awful I am doing, a spotlight shining down on my flaws.  How do I love my children?  No, not the “I love you” rhetoric.  But how do I truly love my children?  I am to lay down my life for them; I just hang on tighter to mine.  So no promises to do better tomorrow, no resolution that I will love.  I will go to bed tonight, heavy-hearted.  The weight of my own failings will drag me down.  But sometimes we must go way down into the pit before we even realize we are there.  Then once we know, we must wallow in it for a spell.  That’s where I am now, actually have been for a long while, wallowing in the pit.  Knowing that I suck, but unknowing and unwilling to do anything about it.  How long have I been ashamed of my own behavior?  How many more times will I be speaking, well really yelling, the words and hating that they come out of my mouth.  My seventy times seven has long past. I am into, ad infinitum.  When do my kids grow wary of me and my flaws and write me off as a bad mother?  Is it time in my life to finally step out of the pit?

Regularity

No not that... but doing the same things over and over.  Some of it drives me nuts, like wiping the kitchen counter and laundry, other stuff I can't seem to handle very well.  Like right now.  My halo is showing; the gray hair around my temples and forehead.  I feel a nice glow, yet how often do I take care of it?  Let me pause while I go do it right now.  Alright, I'm processing and I've just swapped laundry loads.  I've given into vanity, because my goal was to get out of the house by noon, but I'm going to see someone who certainly takes the time and money to do regular hair maintenance.  I have this innate need to buck the system.  Always pushing the limits, never wanting to be tied down. I have boasted many times that there is nothing I do every day aside from go the the bathroom.  Not eat, not sleep, not run.  Hey man, don't fence me in.  But the really weird thing is I like rules.  I majored in math - they gave you the rules.  Follow them and every problem could be conquered.  Easy A.  But real life?  I don't know.  If I followed the life rules, could I conquer every problem?  I suppose we'd have to define what the problems really are.  Hair color - what's the real problem.  If I dye my roots every three weeks, what do I solve?  I loose the halo, but do I really gain anything?  I used to tell my hair dresser (yes, I have one, I can't give myself a good cut, and a good cut is the secret to not having to do your hair every day.) that no one will ever die (no not dye but come to the end of life) and wish they had spent more time doing their hair.  So now that my processing time is nearing completion, I guess the only real thing I've solved is the crown of gray around my face, but the kicker is as soon as that is gone, I've got plenty more vanity problems to look at instead.  I guess I'll see you in three, no make that five... well maybe six weeks.

Training

I'm sure we are in training at our house, but I'm not always sure who's training whom.  Am I training my kids?  Or are they training me?  The youngest has been training me for years.  She cries enough, I react.  She's the loudest by far, so she gets more just because I'm tired of listening to it.  I've definitely been trained well.  But, and there's always that but, aren't I supposed to be training her?  To deal with that anger, to let go of that frustration.  Why should she get so frustrated?  I've written it off for years now, she came out yelling, literally out of the womb and with her first breath - screaming.  One nurse came in and said she heard we had a screamer in the room.  She continued to scream - nightly as I put the others to bed, in the store, if I delivered her applesauce in a green bowl instead of a pink one.  Some days I've just put my head down and wondered why she hates life so much.  I've been in tears thinking that she'll always find this world a terrible place.  Overly dramatic, maybe, but I've spent much of the past few years being yelled at.  So, how do I train her?  She's got a lot of lessons to learn.  But they are not bad lessons.  They are the lessons of life - that things aren't so bad, that her actions hurt other people, that a little bit of work brings joy.  I guess some of the lessons I still have to learn myself.  Like the joy of housework.  I often see how my hatred of being "just a housewife" has colored my rearing of my children.  I get in a bad mood because I've just spent an hour scrubbing the shower, and that bad mood spills over to everything else.  Then I often let them off the hook, thinking that because I hate it, how can I expect anything else from them.  I guess I must train myself better before I can do a positive job of training them.

Writing Seriously

I started lecturing at Bible study.  (Public speaking ceased to scare the death out of me years ago, but that's another story.)  One of the pastors, a man I respect greatly and admire for his missionary and theological work, came to me and said I might want to consider "writing seriously."  So after I wrote the word "seriously" on a scrap piece of paper and handed it to him, we talked a while.  We've since talked many times, and sometimes I wonder if he stops in the office just to spend a few minutes telling me his stories, but I enjoy it.  His comment from that day continues to taunt me.  Do I really have anything worthwhile to say?  Does anyone care to hear it?  I have not the answer to either of those questions.  But another comment, from years ago continues to haunt me.  Is my destiny to be just a housewife?  And can I find satisfaction in that?  Again, no answer to either.  So here is my exploration of the two later questions.  Let's see where it will take me.