Thoughts

As we were going through our day yesterday I found myself composing chapters of my "book". It wouldn't so much be about how to raise a whole bunch of kids, or funny stories about a house full of boys as much as a "book" about letting go of I thought I was. It's interesting how people define themselves through childhood experiences leading into adulthood. What are the things they decide are important. I have found that I am an amalgam of things each of my parents find important, but the life and mate I have chosen don't always allow me to hold onto those preferences. With Dave I am able to be the happy-go-lucky person representative of my dad, but I'm frequently not able to be the person who has plans A, B, and C in place ready to go in the event of a hiccup. I hope that I have held on the the gracious beautiful person that my mom inspires me to be, but I am frequently have to kill the clean freak that rear her ugly head inside me. Every so often when I feel tired or overwhelmed I have a complete breakdown about how dirty and unorganized our house is and I wonder how I can add to that. The thing I have to hold tight to is that this life is not about my preferences, or those qualities I have brought from my family of origin. This life is about dying to self, and giving my life, my whole life away. I have the joy of giving my life away to little people I'm surrounded with. Some people give their lives away in business, or organizations and they get to see their work on graphs, and reports. I see mine in smiles and hugs and whispers a constant background drone of "MOM..." I would like to believe that I am so much more selfless than before I had kids, and then again before I had adopted kids. Dave used to bear the burden of hearing me fuss over whether or not his vacuum lines looked the way they should, or whether or not the towels were turned the right direction. Now, I'm usually glad if we have towels and they don't smell. I found that a lot of the "rules" of housekeeping I put on myself were passed down from my mother, being the consummate teacher, who taught me the "right" way to do pretty much everything. It's hard when you are a rule follower to decide that this and that rule are just not important to you anymore and you are not going to abide my them. It sound funny as I right it down. Contrasted to pretty much anything in life that is important this little difficulty seems like nothing, thought I have spent more than a moment agonizing about a task that I feel I should accomplish that I am just unable. As I continue on this journey I hope to be able to let more temporal things go as I am convinced of the eternal things I strive for.