{"id":599,"date":"2010-03-24T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-march-24-2010\/"},"modified":"2010-03-24T17:09:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T21:09:00","slug":"wednesday-march-24-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-march-24-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday March 24, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/font>y friend <\/span>Anita<\/a> and I frequently keep each other grounded about the pros and cons of being married. Ninety percent of the time we are thrilled with life as is; but there are those days when the grass really does look a lot greener “over there.” Frankly, for me, this has much less to do with being a wife and more with being a mom.<\/span>

Anita gets to live what I think is a very exciting life. She has sung on more international choir tours (you should see the envy oozing out of my pores) then I can keep track of under some very talented directors. She travels in Europe (not just has traveled once and I can’t even say that except for my brief stint in the British Isles). She is super involved in people’s lives and has been dean of women at two Bible Schools. She’s written a highly successful <\/span>book<\/a> geared toward single women, but in truth it is wonderful for all women. And while she says she is beyond the point of burnout, I can’t help but notice that her job is with other people who are by and large adult and that she has chosen to live alone as opposed to with her family so that she can have some peace and quiet. Peace and quiet. Tell me again what that is? Oh, yes, that temporary lull when the boys are both sleeping just before I start supper prep … subject to interruption at a moments notice, of course.<\/span>

She, on the other hand, sees the tremendous security I bask in daily. I am inexplicably adored by David. I spend every day loving and taking care of two very normal little boys who are ours for keeps. I get to stay home, to plan my own schedule, and the demands of others are mostly demands from my immediate family … people I love so much it hurts as opposed to grouchy customers. While I only get to pursue my dreams in a limited way because of my 24\/7 responsibilities, I have a 24\/7 cheering squad (some people call him my husband). When I have had it with a days worth of snotty noses, clingy, whiny, volatile temper boys who suddenly forgot how to play and refuse to sleep at naptime, I get to roll my eyes at someone and we laugh at the crazy life we live together (key word being together, just in case you read that too fast.) When I cry, I get wrapped up in two strong arms. When I am tired, those same arms hold me for a few minutes until I feel some of his strength. Best of all, when I get quiet, someone knows and asks until I talk. I am sometimes lonely for social life; but I am never lonely in that aching, heart-stabbing, soul-mate missing loneliness.<\/span>

Would I want to swap with her? Of course not. Would she swap with me. Never. At least not exactly with my life. Oh, she thinks David is perfectly amazing … for me, you know.<\/span> Often when we talk we tell each other the wonderful parts of our life. But when stuff gets really tarnished and one or the other of us loses perspective, we straight talk each other with the jealousy we each have for the other’s life. Still, in the end, I admit that while her life has more excitement, she’s right that the grass is greener on my end. We both know it even without my saying it.<\/span>

I worried a little that there was something amiss about me missing that independence. I mean, I prayed for years and years that God would give me a husband and family. In fact, when I was about ten I told the pastor at church I wanted to grow up and have twenty-six kids. One for each letter of the alphabet you know. His smiles was enormous and finally he managed to say, “Well, you know, you could maybe go with thirteen and their middle names could count, too. So I really am living out my dream (just not the 26 kids part!). Some days I can feel that so strongly it makes me want to cry happy tears and say things so sweet they are almost sappy. Like Saturday when the weather was like heaven on earth and we planted garden and built a sandbox for the boys and dug another flower-bed. Or Sunday morning when David and I were fixing food for lunch and drinking our coffee before the boys got up and before we started the mad dash of getting ready for church. Or that afternoon as I finished cleaning up the dishes and watched David pitch ball to Adam who is learning how to bat and Liam ran around them in circles trying hard to do everything Adam did. Do I love my life? Absolutely. So why the inner unrest that pops up at the oddest times.<\/span>

Last week when we took the boys to the library I picked out two novels for me. I rarely read novels (one every few months) purely because I am still terribly undisciplined when it comes to reading. I don’t hide them in the bathroom vanity anymore and pretend it’s taking extra long in the bathroom because mom isn’t here to come knock on the door anyway. But I still get so engrossed I read and read and read. Fast and furious until it’s done and sometimes way too late at night. I love a good story. <\/span>

One of the books I picked up was “Swapping Lives” by Jane Green (yes, I know that is supposed to be underlined but Safari doesn’t let me do anything dramatic in xanga. Silly Macs). Sort of like Anita and I, two women see the grass greener on the other side of the fence. Except the story line is fifty million times more fascinating and the women actually DO swap lives for a time. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book. The story is great in itself; but lines kept jumping out at me as though they should be emblazoned with a hot pink highlighter. It was like someone was reading my mind and explaining to me why I felt the way I did.<\/span>

…”it’s not that I want to leave you and the children. I don’t. I love you, and you know I love the kids, it’s just that ….” <\/span>
….. “I never want to be without you and Jared and Gracie, not permanently. I just need a break. It’s not that I want to be single, I just want to remember what life used to be like. I feel as though I look in the mirror and I have no idea who I am anymore. What happened to the strong, successful, independent woman I used to be? How did I become a person whose sole topics of conversation …..”<\/span>
… “This isn’t about you. This is about remembering who I am.”<\/span>
… “When I think back to before I met Richard, when I worked in the city and had an apartment, it’s not even that it feels like a lifetime ago, it feels like it happened to someone else … I’d like to be reminded of who the real Amber is, who she was before she was defined solely as a wife and mother …”<\/span>
….. “It’s not that I miss being single, it’s that I miss excitement.”<\/span>
…. “All the passion she once poured onto her husband, she now pours into her children, leaving her with the comfortable feeling of an old pair of slippers.”<\/span>

And suddenly I understood why I pursue things like writi<\/span>ng and photography in the limited time and way that I do (even if it sometimes means losing ridiculous amounts of sleep). It’s why I don’t resist when David says, “You haven’t gone out with friends for awhile, why don’t you let me stay home with the boys one night?” It’s why I jump at the chance to help create a brochure or decorate the showroom even when I really don’t have time.  It’s why dinner is going to be late tonight because I finished writing this post.  <\/span>  It’s why my brain waves go flat when I get burned out and eliminate non-essentials. Because somehow even that tiny bit helps to keep a spark alive inside myself. Not a very bright spark, I’ll admit. But enough to help me remember, just a little, that I am still a person. <\/span>

If you’re a mom, especially a mom to infants and preschoolers, what do you do to stay alive in your spirit? Or is the grass actually the greenest on your side of the fence?<\/span>
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