Looking Up

I am feeling quite a bit better. Have you ever gotten a really bad cold that it puts you down for the count for several days and when you start to feel better you are more cautious about the choices you make in your day or how harried you allow you day to be because you don't quite feel like yourself yet? That is how I am feeling except I wasn't sick with a cold and I don't want to go back to feeling like I was right before I went down for the count mentally.

I am taking each day 1 day at a time. I have only mild plans each day and I slowly accomplish those limited tasks. I am not filling my day with a huge 'to do' list. I am not allowing my day to become consumed by what we are learning, eating, and how much we are cleaning up after ourselves. This doesn't mean that nothing is getting done around here because it certainly is, but I am just not as consumed by my 'to do' list and the expectations I placed on my shoulders to get those things done followed by the immense guilt I had if I did not get certain items crossed off to my satisfaction.

In hindsight, I cannot believe that I did not have this mini-breakdown earlier. I really cannot. The amount of stuff I was trying to carry and the pressure that I was putting on myself to get those things done was immense. And the whirlwind that I got myself caught up in was tornadic in nature. Looking back on how caught up I was in a life that wasn't even my own makes me want to cry. It makes me want to cry because I have so much to offer this world as me, and yet I allowed myself to create this image of what I thought I was supposed to look like/be instead of just being me. And the thing is no one put this pressure on me except for myself. I had this image of what a stay-at-home homeschooling Christian mama should look like, and she looked nothing like who I authentically am and so I tried to change myself into this incredibly unrealistic idea of perfection that I will never be because: a.) that woman is not the soul who resides inside of me and b.) I am a human being who will never, ever be perfect. And the scary thing is is that this whirlwind has been months in the making. It's not like this breakdown occurred because of some major disaster that suddenly popped up in my life. It was quite the opposite actually.  This weight has been slowly gaining momentum as I allowed myself to be overtaken by images and ideas about the person I thought I was supposed to be. The roles I thought I was supposed to fulfill. Looking back on it all it seems absolutely crazy that I could have gotten myself so absorbed in this false image of who I am, but I did. I am just thankful that the spell was broken (as hard as it was for me to go through) and I can now get back to being just me - not some person of who I think I should be.

So, what now? Well, I don't really know. I will tell you that I have stopped reading just about every one of the blogs I was reading on an almost daily basis. And that has been a very good thing for me. For once in my life, I don't have a plan. Right now I am just spending this time breathing deeply - if that makes any sense. I don't have a menu planned out or a school schedule planned out or a house keeping schedule planned out. We just eat what we have, we do the school work that is needed, and we clean up after ourselves without succumbing to a schedule. I am trying to learn to sit with the imperfection of my days. I am trying to be okay with having an imperfect menu, and an imperfect lesson plan, and an imperfect housekeeping schedule. It hasn't been easy, but it has been a worthwhile lesson. I find myself saying what seems like a hundred times a day, "God, please be near me.", which of course is silly because God is always near me, but this simple prayer helps me to remember that I don't have to go it alone. It also helps me to remember that I am not perfect. I cannot be perfect because I am a mere human.

Once I get truly back on my feet again I know that I will begin to have plans again. And inevitably I will have 'to do' lists because that is just a part of who I am. The catch of the whole matter is that I just need to make sure that the 'to do' lists that I am creating are lists that are filled with items that are authentically mine and not filled with items that from a check list of the person I think I should be.