“I must accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don’t set any condition.”
Margaret Lee Runbeck
I’ll be happy when the dog doesn’t pee in the house any more. I’ll be happy when the baby is out of diapers. I’ll be happy when the teacher doesn’t send so much homework home. I’ll be happy when I have a bigger house. I’ll be happy when I can get Chick-fil-A on Sundays. I’ll be happy when it stops raining.
Why not just be happy now? Why not choose joy despite not having your favorite thing or when enduring something that’s just a part of life?
There will always be one thing you don’t like. Always one thing you can cling to to blame for your discontent. But there are always a million other reasons to smile.
Choose your focal point. If you’re always looking at life with a glass half full attitude, your mind will be healthier, your relationships will grow, and your time will be high quality.
Bloom where you’re planted, find that sunny spot, and be happy anyway.
Here’s my toxic trait. I keep things for way too long. If it’s not broken, I keep it until I can strategically find a loving home for it or because I “might need it one day”. And it’s such a poor use of my time, space, and energy.
Lately, I’ve been using the antique breadmaker I kept from 1998 and it’s REALLY made me happy, but was it actually worth hanging into it for all that time? Probably not.
It’s hard to get rid of a thing you’ve attached a memory to. It’s hard to toss out something you were so proud to have. And it’s hard to admit when things change, kids move out, or you don’t fit into that dress you felt amazing in.
To my fellow collectors, reach out to your friends to help you. They’re not attached to your stuff, they’ll listen to why you are, and then they’ll lovingly walk you through the break up process. Keep an empty Amazon box in your bedroom marked donate and slowly fill it up. Hang your clothes in backwards once you wear them so you see what you just absolutely don’t wear.
All tips and tricks I’m writing down to be my own hype person and use this season of home for the holidays as a season of decluttering. Decompressing my space. And distressing my life.
My grandmother told me years ago that women are the ones who keep the big families together. She went on to say “Don’t you think my sisters and I got into it? Sure we did. Do you think our husbands always got along? Lord no.” when explaining how it wasn’t always easy.
She was one of four sisters who made decisions daily to raise their families close. They each had multiple children and all those kids know each other. Moving on those kids had kids, their kids had kids, and there’s another generation of kids in the mix today.
That’s five generations of a family who all know each other because of the decision those four women made to keep their families close. And it’s their legacy now that they’re all passed on.
“I’m so blessed because I’ve got family and not everyone has that” was what she said to me the last time I saw her and I’ll never forget it. It’s been a year since she passed and I reached out to one of my cousins (I don’t even know how many times removed or any of the tree talk to say) to ask what the trick was to keeping the family close after the matriarch dies.
“Forgiveness” was the word she gave me. So if you’ve been blessed with a big family, accept it. Love each other and defend and protect each other. Get into it and make up like big families do. And forgive. Forgive for you and so you may honor the legacy the women before you worked so hard to create.
Women are the organizers, the cooks, and the gatekeepers of the schedules. Women are the nurturers and if we get behind the family, there’s a better chance of its legacy surviving, and a better chance of you creating one for yourself.
I was barely nineteen when Alex was born, almost twenty two when Kaitlyn was born, and my mom was twenty when I was born. That makes for one young mama and a very young nana.
I’ll be turning forty four the month my first grandbaby is born, little Lola Jo, and it still blows my mind my mother will be a great grandmother and I’ll be a granny at such young ages. And I love it.
To all you young mamas and daddies, it’s going to be tough, most likely you won’t be set in your career, and you may not even have a plan….
But you have something you can’t buy: energy and time! I would spend my twenties raising babies all over again knowing how important having more time is.
Don’t think you’re missing out when you see your friends go out or settle in their careers before you, don’t think you’re trapped when you see them enjoy their babysitter free nights. Don’t think for one second you’re not being fulfilled.
Your life is going to be filled with joy in a different way. The pitter patter of footsteps and the repeated “mommy mommy mommy mommy” but the sweetest moments that you’ll have the youth to energize and the time later to enjoy the fruits of it.
I feel lucky every day my kids were able to enjoy my own grandparents, make real memories with them and know them like I did. It’s a blessing to me.
Because in the end that time and the energy to enjoy it is something you can’t buy.
I was watching two little boys play yesterday, taking turns jumping off of a bench, and I hear “Get out of my way” from one to the other. Well, that wasn’t very nice.
I called that little boy over and said, “Okay, I’m going to say the same thing to you in two different ways and I want you tell me which one sounds nicer. ‘Get out of my way’ or ‘Excuse me, please’. Now, you tell me which one sounds nicer.” Little boy responds, “Excuse me, please.” It didn’t take him long to decide, either. And he’s four.
When they went back to playing the other little boy kept getting in the way, and I heard “Excuse me, please” about a half a dozen more times. The other would still move, but the outcome was the same as if he’d said “Get out of my way”. It was just a nicer way to do it.
Moving into adulthood, the same concept applies. Why demand something of someone you could request as a favor? Most of the time, people are happy to do for us what we present in a respectful way and they’re more willing to oblige when they’re asked rather than when they’re instructed.
Remember when you prayed for the things you have now? Enough money to buy groceries, a home, a car, to have a family and meaningful friendships, or to start your own business…Remember praying for those things?
I do. I remember praying for my own real estate company, for my kids to make their way, for more freedom with my finances. I remember those prayers well.
What I forget sometimes is that God answered those prayers. I forget how it felt to hope and to ask God to show me how to make a way. To wonder if those prayers would ever be answered. How quickly I’m able to forget when I’m focused on wanting more, accustomed to having prayers answered, what I used to want so badly.
This season of gratitude, I hope we can all quiet our minds long enough to remember how fortunate we are. Even if we have some prayers still on our list, that we can be thankful for the answered prayers we said long ago.
Serious question. Where’s your joy? Is it in sitting by a fire having good conversation? Having coffee with a friend who knows you inside and out? Watching your family enjoy the meal you prepared? Finishing a project you started? Those are the ones that come to my mind.
So the same places it comes from are the places we feel it missing the most. What do we do when we feel the void? When friends can’t coordinate schedules and when we’re actually by ourselves?
If your joy is reliant on other people to maintain it, on the reactions and affirmation of others…. Your joy will always feel small because that’s not YOUR joy.
For me, true joy comes from the mindset I have when I don’t depend on others to fill it or even participate. Cooking a meal and giving it away. Taking coffee to a friend and knowing they don’t have time to talk. Sitting by a fire and enjoying a peaceful moment. Or finishing a project by myself.
I’ve found if I’m waiting on others to fill my joy, it never works out. Find that something you can do without needing the credit, attention, or time of others, that thing that makes your heart smile…and do it often.
If you’ve read these for a bit or you’ve known me for a long time, then you know I was raised in a big (5 kids) Catholic family. We all went Catholic school and grew up in Catholic Church.
When I became a mother, I was tasked with choosing a church and a way for my kids and that’s when I realized that duty carried a lot of responsibility. Choosing for someone else hits differently.
And choosing who your kids are around affects how they turn out. I couldn’t afford private school so I knew the church I plugged them in to would be the place where I gave them the biggest peer influence. Back 18 years ago, the youth program wasn’t a thing at our sweet little church in Leeds, but it was a big thing right down the street at a non denominational church.
So we visited, the kids loved it, I loved it, and I was in a “what’s best for my family” vs “don’t want to disappoint the family” conflict. If you’ve ever been Catholic or raised one way then you know what this feels like. It feels like you’re betraying something or saying what you had wasn’t good enough and that wasn’t the case.
The best advice I ever got was from my priest, Father Jim. Of course I went to him, scared and nervous about the idea of leaving the church. Of course I expected him to urge me to “stick to the plan” but I never expected him to say this…
“You go where you grow.” He told me not to worry about disappointing anyone, that they could take it up with him and for me to go to a church where I grew as a mother, where my children grew as Christians, where I would do what was best for MY family.
To have a priest see the bigger picture and be willing to love me and support me through it was one of the kindest and most selfless acts I’d ever seen. Because if him, I raised my kids with confidence and resources I wasn’t afraid to use, we grew as a family, we hosted small groups and I think I fed hundreds of meals to my kids and their friends, all while listening to them talk about life and their love of Jesus and make connections.
I would have never branched out had it not been for Father Jim. He passed on almost ten years ago, and this is a memory of him I love to share with anyone who feels trapped or guilty for doing something different.
Sometimes we get mad, hurt, and disappointed. People act dumb, careless, and inconsiderate.
But what about when they don’t? What about the times we get worked up, fill in our own blanks, make the ending up, and then get pissed at the story we wrote ourselves.
It didn’t actually happen. If it didn’t even happen, why are you even mad? Why waste energy and time on make believe? Why expect the worst and react like you were done wrong when 👏 nothing 👏 was 👏 actually 👏 done 👏 to 👏 you.
Let’s do better at practicing the art of seeing what actually happens and not what we think someone’s going to do in the future and live in a world where we think they did it.
That’s a spirit of rejection we choose to live in and it’s time to break free from it.
As I sit here in my living room with 3” of glitter roots and look at my hands typing this that don’t look soft and smooth like they used to, I’m really asking myself “When is it okay to be old?”
Really. When is it okay to love those wrinkles around your eyes from laughing? Look at the skin on your legs and see freckles you didn’t used to have? When’s it okay to stop dying your hair and love the days God gave you for it to turn? Not want to use the “smooth” filter when you take a picture? When’s it okay to stop trying to stay young when time is literally showing you you’re not?
I say the time is exactly when you are ready. If you feel young when you put effort into looking young, go for it. If you’re ready to embrace the natural state of your body, go for it. Don’t let social pressure push you into more work or push you away from your inner youth.
You care for yourself exactly how you see fit. When you’re ready, let the wrinkles detox from the Botox, let the hair dye stay on the shelf, and let your body age the way God designed it to be.
But until then…don’t feel bad for wanting your outside self to match your inner 22 year old and don’t feel bad for feeling better about yourself when you do.
I’ll be loading on all the creams, setting that timer for 45 minutes so I get that good color coverage, and putting on my lash serum tomorrow….because this soon to be granny just isn’t ready quite to look like a granny. Tried it…didn’t like it.
Deeper Than a Puddle 