Thoughts and Perspectives From the Mind of a Common Girl
Hey everyone,
It’s time for me to take a short break, as I will be out of town for a few days. In the meantime, I have a few things scheduled to post. However, I doubt I will have much extra time to read your blogs or answer comments. Please forgive me, and I promise to be back just as soon as I can. Hope you have an amazing week! Much love, ~M xoxo
Photo credit: pixabay.com
For the last two years now, I have been very unsure about the future of my marriage. The past sort of caught up with my husband and the present sort of caught up with me. Needless to say, we were both at fault in different ways. About four months ago, I had finally gotten to the point where I decided I was tired of trying. In my mind, I just sort of gave up and decided it was time to figure out plan B. I started picturing my life without him. Wondering what I would do apart from him and where I would go. We still have two children at home, so that was of course another concern of mine. What would happen to them if we split up, how would we work it all out? And yet I could never actually see us getting to the point of divorce. I really couldn’t even fathom the idea of such a drastic decision.
After admitting to my husband that I didn’t think I could continue on the way things were, he in turn seemed to agree. And yet divorce was the furthest thing from his mind. His immediate response was to somehow fix what was broken in our marriage and strengthen the parts which looked salvageable. For four months now, he has been trying very hard to turn things around. I have to admit, I haven’t made things easy. I have fought him every bit of the way, by not really believing any of what he’s been saying. After years of empty promises, I didn’t want to allow myself to be tricked again.
His first response was to begin by writing me poetry; which is something he had never done in his entire life. I remember reading the words he wrote during those first few months and thinking to myself… “He can’t really mean any of this.” I thought… “This is just another one of his schemes to make me believe him, but it’s not going to last.” Over the years he would say he would try harder, but there was never any long lasting changes to support his efforts. It was mostly just cheap talk and I knew I didn’t want to fall for that again. I was finally ready to move on and I didn’t want to get sucked back into a life of false hopes.
Well it’s been four months now since he’s started blogging. And I think the turning point for me was when he wrote this… Heart of Sadness. Since then, I have begun to believe that he is truly being sincere. He finally seems to understand and acknowledge how I’ve been feeling. We tell each other everything, but I had often wondered if he was really hearing me. I wasn’t sure if he understood that I didn’t feel the same kind of love for him anymore. I wondered if he could live with that fact, or if it would ultimately destroy our marriage. Yet the more we talked, the more I knew he understood, and he told me very sweetly that he just wanted me to be happy.
I suppose because he isn’t demanding my love, I am slowly finding my way back to him. We have been making immense progress, and I am finally accepting that he really is changing for the better. I’m starting to believe him when he tells me he loves me, and I’m hopeful once more that we can make our marriage work. We will be celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary on the 5th of February and I’m excited to get away for a few days and just have some time alone with him. We’ve literally spent half our lives together now, and both of us know that we can’t just throw all of that away. I honestly just can’t picture my life without him, and I hope I never can.
So to my husband… aka, SW. I have hope that we will make it, TTF…… ❤️ Love always, ~Me
My goal for 2017 was to bring happiness to others. We’re only ten days in, and I already feel like the exact opposite has occurred. It really seemed like such an easy task too. I thought I could just be more positive, portray an air of happiness, and then everyone else would just follow suit. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? Lead by example and everyone will follow… am I right? And yet it hasn’t worked at all.
I know I’m not very good at hiding my true feelings, but I thought I was doing a really good job of at least controlling the negative ones. I suppose I’ve come to the conclusion, that I can’t fool anyone, least of all myself. I’m trying desperately to hide behind the positives though. It’s the only way I can continue to live, without completely drowning in my own sorrows. Its mind over matter… don’t you think? Isn’t that the only way any of us can really survive?
We often try to fool ourselves into thinking we’re happy, because that’s what everyone is after. We all want that wonderful happy life, which is so often fakely displayed everywhere we look. Do you really believe that smiling family on Facebook, is happily living life free of any problems or issues? And see this is the problem, we believe everyone else has everything so easy and so perfect, when in actuality, true happiness doesn’t really exist.
We need to realize that we aren’t ever going to be completely happy on this earth, or in this life, because that’s an impossibility. It’s unfortunate though, because we live with the idea that it’s achievable, which only makes us feel like complete failures when we never obtain a perfectly happy life. Having hope is one thing, but we’ve got to be realistic as well.
So I’m changing my goal for 2017. I don’t want to bring happiness to others, but I want to show others how to find slivers of happiness right where they are. In the misery and agony of our imperfect lives, there are sometimes moments of happiness. Fleeting as they are, we need to hold onto those moments, and bring them back into focus on those particular days, when grief overtakes our sad little lives. We certainly can’t give up and quit, just because things aren’t going our way.
Anyway, enough of my ranting. I’m not even sure any of what I’m saying is making any sense. All I know is, I can’t continue to live my life waiting for perfection. This is it, this is my God given life; and I’d better make the best of it, or I may not have one left at all.
I thought I’d lost someone today. Someone who has filled a void in my heart, like nobody else ever has. I can’t imagine going through the rest of my life without this sweet person. They mean the world to me and have become my closest and most trusted confidant. I have never had a friend quite like this particular one, and the thought of losing them left me feeling heartbroken.
I tried to go about my day as usual, but eventually the tears erupted for the millionth time and I could no longer hold back how terrible I felt. My hubby tried to console me, tried to reassure me that I hadn’t lost them. And yet I’m still not quite sure where I stand.
My daughter Autumn came up to me this morning and asked me what she should draw for art class. Thinking about how happy this friend of mine has always made me feel, I told her to draw what makes her the happiest. A little while later, she brought back this picture of me and her. It was the sweetest gesture and a drawing I will always treasure, because happiness to her, means her and me together.
Happiness is always about having those special people in our lives that mean the most to us. We cannot even hope for anything better. So to my dear friend C… If you by chance happen to read this. You will always be a treasured friend to me and I love you as if you are part of my family. I prayed my whole life for somebody like you, so please don’t ever forget how much you mean to me.
Love, ~M xoxo
It was early New Year’s Eve morning. A knock on my bedroom door, and a small little voice alerted me to the fact that something wasn’t quite right. The little voice proceeded to make her way into the bedroom, and with a very firm and demanding tone she said, “Mommy, you need to take me to the doctors right now!”
I immediately flung myself out of the bed and ran to my littlest daughter. I expected blood to be trailing off somewhere, maybe from a missing limb or a fractured skull. Not seeing the cause for such an alarm, I asked her what was wrong. She said, “Mommy, come here! I’ll show you!” In which she proceeded to drag me to the other side of the house and into the bathroom we went. “See mommy look! My poop is all big and messy and I had to sit in here for a whole hour!”
Her eyes were crazy and wild looking, as she seemed to have no concept or recollection of ever having diarrhea in her entire life. I almost started to laugh, as her demanding little face pleaded with me to help her make some sense of this agonizing experience. So I began to explain to this child of eight, that she just had a stomach bug, and that she would soon be better. I ended up giving her some anti-diarrheal medicine, sat her in front of the television, and told her that no matter what, she was not to eat anything until her stomach righted itself.
Well since it was still so early, I decided to go back to bed and see if I could get a few more minutes of shut eye in before enduring further chaos. Climbing back into bed, my husband proceeded to tell me that she had been throwing up several hours earlier. I was completely shocked by his statement and I said, “What do you mean? Where was I? And who cleaned everything up? He just simply smiled and said, “I took care of it all, I didn’t want to wake you up.”
I was completely dumbfounded by the fact that I had not woken up and even more shocked that my husband had cleaned everything up by himself. To imagine him enduring that grueling task all by himself, made me feel so very guilty for not being there, and blessed at the same time, for having a husband who would attend to such a mess himself.
Now that a week has passed, I was sure we had sailed that ship, and didn’t expect to see the boat return so quickly. And yet unfortunately, there was another reoccurrence of the entire event last night. Only this time, hubby was at work, and I was left to attend to my poor child who was squirting from both ends.
Of course I’ve told all of you before, Autumn is my happy child. Always smiling, always thankful, and through it all, she was thanking me for helping her, and smiling up at me and snuggling next to me, once the squirting eventually stopped. This time she seemed like she had a better handle on what was going on, and didn’t seem so eager to rush to the emergency room.
Fortunately, my daughter Autumn is rarely sick, and so the week before had been the very first time in her eight year old life that she had experienced any kind of a flu bug. I’m guessing that nursing her for the first two years of her life, is the reason behind her incredible immunity to illness. I nursed her the longest and it really has made a difference when I compare her to my other daughters and how often they were all sick.
Anyway, today I am thankful for a child who can still find something to smile about, despite having the stomach flu, and I am thankful for a husband who surprised me last week, and took on a task that most people would shudder to do. This time around, I sure was missing his help, and I am so tired today because of being up all night. Fortunately my daughter is feeling better once more, and I’m just hoping and praying that we don’t have another repeat of this in another week.
Hope all of you are having a fantastic week and starting the New Year off on the right foot. Remember when things don’t go as planned, tomorrow is a new day. A chance to start over, another opportunity to get over the many hurdles, and carry on with God’s plan for your life. It may not always be rosy, and you may face a few battles. Just don’t ever give up! Love you guys so much. Hang in there, the weekend is finally here! ~M xoxo
Putting My Feet in the Dirt 