Last SUmMeR

"Whatever thing you think you can't do life without

(alcohol, shopping, money, that workout); that you grab like a lifeline, when

you release that thing, when you let it go, that's when you'll

hear the notes between the music."

Shauna Niequist

Shauna Niequist in Present Over Perfect, invites us 

to look at those things that we are using to avoid the mess,

pain, and fear.  But those painful areas are a part of life and

when we avoid those, we also avoid life.

I have often seen in my own life those places I was avoiding 

that have felt intense or pregnant with emotion that once I

"go there" it is not as bad as I assumed.  When I sit with journal

in hand and stop, there is peace.  I am usually very aware of my

internal angst and often in these days not too afraid to face those places.

But what stops me today in this writing is asking, is there something

that I think I can't do without-that I use to avoid, control, or keep

things "at bay."  Is there a place I am avoiding?

I was thinking about this morning how I had a wide open morning.

Three kids, summer morning, not much agenda besides get

workout done and breakfast.

Then things started to crumble.  A irritated child who probably,y didn't eat the

right protein- filled breakfast, the child just needing me to get on the 

floor and play, and the child wanting me to listen.

Then more needs get morphed in...help me clean my room,

pick me up, put laundry in so put chid down, glass sugar container

crashes to the floor, baby won't go down for a nap, child seems needy 

and somewhat irritable.

I think sometimes I can get overwhelmed by the desire to meet the

needs of three and how to balance that.  Someone most likely won't receive what

 they are after in a given moment as you are seeing another need. It something

 can feel like a perpetual ball bounding form one to another and something within is 

not enjoying these three I love so much.

I am stopped by these two things.  Is there something I can't do without and this

place of having my three and feeling at a lost because I

don't know how to meet all the needs and feel full at the same time.

Maybe I shrink, get frustrated, feel imitable, try to get productive with something

I can control....maybe that is my lifeline from feeling the pain of being only

one, the pain that the time or myself can't be prefect, that sometimes it is 

just the daily daily.

Maybe I won't measure up, maybe I won't be enough, am I enough to

give them each what they do individually need. 

Oh I need this space.

I need to write, be alone, read, fill my cup...what if I won't get what I need?

I think I am onto something in this new thoughts.

Will keep thinking through it.