Image by Laura Ketteman

Image by Laura Ketteman

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Day 88. Being Me.

This is my dining room.  Nice, huh?  Lovely.  Warm.  Homey.  Cozy.  That table just makes you want to cook something and set out beautiful dishes to serve it on.  Riiiiiiiiigggghhhht!  :)

Have you ever met those women who just seem to have everything together?  As soon as you read that line, a name AND an annoyingly perfect face popped into your head.  We all have that person.  I'm NOT that person.  But do you know what I've discovered?... neither is "THAT" person!

I've been a wife for thirteen years.  I've been a mother for ten.  I've been ALIVE for thirty-three.  The older I become, the more I realize that I canNOT force myself to become something I am not.  Period.  Do I have room to grow?  Absolutely!  Can I improve?  Oh, I assure you!  But I can't change those aspects about my personality, no matter HOW hard I try, that are just WHO I am.  (Yes, this is leading up to the clutter-filled dining room table.)

For years, I have tried to fit a pre-determined mold.  I thought when I stayed home with my kids, it was my job and my duty, to have the house spic-n-span clean daily, gourmet food on the table for dinner every night, laundry finished every week and neatly folded and put away in everyone's drawers.  Not only did I think this was an accurate picture, I actually believed I could and WOULD achieve it!  Why not?  I would have so much time to kill!  How much time could one, little baby possibly occupy?  Once again, I say... Riiiiiigggghhhhht!

If this is your gift, I commend you for it.  But I would dare say that most of us are more like myself... in that, we try and try and TRY to fit into what we "think" we should be, as opposed to embracing who God actually made us to be.

Am I the most unorganized person I've ever met?  Nope.  Am I the neatest?  Nope, not that either.  BUT I am working really, REALLY hard to accept who I am, just as I am.  That dining room table haunts me, and I assure you it's not the worst spot in my house.  My pride would not allow me to take a picture of the clutter filled corner of my basement.  Or the laundry room.  Or my bedroom.  But you know, it's all relative.  What one person considers a disaster, another may only consider a bit of clutter.  The dining room table gets cleaned off fairly consistently.  The school papers pile up.  Children's books get placed after reading at bedtime and the dog leashes are often tossed after my hubby or I have taken them running (yes, I'm running (kind of), but that's a story for another day).  And if we're expecting guests, or planning a special occasion, I'll run around like a chicken with my head cut off, getting everything in order again.  It stays that way for about a week, and it all starts to pile around me once more.  Why?  BECAUSE LIFE HAPPENS!  Nothing frustrates me MORE than to do work that will only get UNDONE as soon as I've finished it.  Oh, I'm just getting on a role now, folks!

Here's the deal... It is NOT my nature to be structured, organized, and routine.  For heaven sakes, I don't even wash my hair, my body, and my face in the same order during my shower every morning!  I do my best to keep up with the important things.  Have I mentioned I have three children?  Have I mentioned that life happens?  God graced me with a husband who was specifically designed to find my quirks endearing.  Some of the things I dislike the most about myself, are the same reasons he finds me lovable.  He has a very real perspective on priorities.  I am blessed that he does not have unrealistic expectations of my role in our family.  He knows I do my best.  I love him with all of my heart, and I make sure he has fresh iced tea in the fridge when he comes home from work (most of the time!).  I make dinner for my family every evening (even if we have to push the papers from the kitchen table to the dining room table).  I carpool my children back and forth to school, and I help them with their homework.  Everyone's soap, shampoo, and toothbrush magically gets replaced when it runs out.  Pantries are miraculously filled with food.  I do laundry religiously (don't ask me about how often it gets put away) and my children are, more often than not, clean, fed, and happy.  :)

My point is, SO WHAT if the dust bunnies in my bedroom are a little out of control?  And why do I feel it necessary to make excuses for it to ANYONE?  I think the world would be a happier place if we all worried less about what everyone else was doing and/or accomplishing, and concerned ourselves more with our own selves and families... how we can grow, how we can learn...

Being real isn't being weak.  It's being honest.  Showing others your true colors, whether it be a weakness or a strength, is just telling the truth.  So, why do we worry about it so much?  I teach my children to worry about what God's opinion is of them, not the people around them.  Why should I be any different?

4 comments:

  1. You are very brave my daughter, to take pictures of your messes. You lived here til you where grown and I'm not sure when I was first able to keep folded laundry off our dining room table. I don't think any of you are scarred or had nightmares of clothes chasing you around. When all five of you were little I don't think you paid attention,and when you were teenagers I think you thought it was a easy way to get to your clothes. I think it is way more important for your children to say things like,"Mom, its fun to play sports with you because you laugh so much" or take time to take a caterpillar named Greenleaf to school AND bring him home again.

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  2. Love you, Mommy! ...my most faithful blog reader. :) No, none of us are scarred from clothes on the dining room table! And I don't know how "brave" I am for posting a picture of my mess... or if I'm just, plain stupid. It's part of my growing process to be transparent and real! It is what it is!

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  3. I love you both!!!! :) No scarring indeed from being at your house, my other mother! It was so inviting and fun that no one cared about the clothes because they'd eventually get put away! And Laura, you don't have to be totally perfect for us to think you're super-woman!

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  4. This, my dear friend, is one of the reasons I loved my 30's. Once I learned to give myself a break and accept myself the way God made me, I was able to give everyone else around me a break. HUGE weight off my shoulders. Way to go girlfriend, life is messy, might as well take a picture of it and enjoy :)

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ilLaurastrations Photography began in Spring of 2009.