Wanting Something Better

For the past 8 months the only thing that has been at the forefront of my mind is: "I want go home!"

The words aren't as loud these days, and they are a little more wistful and not so bludgeoning... but they are still there. And, still inside my head. I can't say them out loud because it upsets my mom that I call Strasburg home, and it upsets Garren that I am so homesick because it was his job that took me away, and putting those words out there just causes a big chip on everyone's shoulder.

Of course they don't stay away from my lips all the time. Usually I blurt them out when I get lost for the millionth time in the car, or when everything that can go wrong seems to, or when I whine to Ruth--who no doubt is getting awfully sick of hearing it.

So, I keep it to myself.

But, I can't go "home." This place is my home now. My home is with my husband and my children and while I am not sitting in a corner crying demanding he take me back, I am not being very grown up, or very responsible about the whole thing. I know that some miracle isn't going to blow through the door and pack our boxes and head the car back to the Shenandoah Valley, and I just have to suck it up and go on.

But, in this ninth month of missing the people I love most (outside of my kids and Garren of course), I am realizing that I actually want something better. I want more than for the pain to go away (which I am guessing will eventually go away). I want a better life. I want more for me. I want more for my kids. I want more for my marriage.

This isn't day 1 of this revelation, I have been thinking about this for a while now. And, as He usually does, God finds away to "speak" to me through others.

I LOVE crafting, and you would be amazed at how many other stay at home, and even working moms, love to craft too. And they not only do it way better than me--but they blog about it. They show you how to make this and that all while juggling multiple children and housework and dinners and teething...(you get the idea).

I thought about cutting off my subscriptions to these blogs. While I found great craft ideas, reading them made me feel even more insecure (like that was a possibility). Here these women not only handled it "all" but crafted and sold their hand made items and looked ridiculously beautiful and skinny and perfect.

Now, we all know the grass isn't always greener, but when you are a homesick woman with VERY low self esteem and too much time in a house that you refuse to leave--you tend to decide that it is (greener that is.)

Besides being beautiful, and fit, and somehow balancing more than two kids (some of these ladies have 4+!!), they all had one other very important thing in common. They were very religious. 90 percent of the blogs I loved the most are written by Mormon moms. Now, my favorite mom friend in the world just happens to be a Mormon, so I already thought they were awesome.

But, over the past 2 days they have showed me even more of their awesomeness. They showed that they are real just like me. Like some sort of Divine message, 5+ of these blogging moms (who don't have any connection that I know of) shared how they are trying to improve their lives. They found parts in themselves that they just had to focus on, and even shared. I am not doing a good job of explaining this, but these creative minds were somehow on the same journey as I am.

Now, I know we are all on a journey, and many people want to improve themselves and their lives--but for the first time I want more than a solitary goal. I want more than losing weight, or finding time to breathe--I have a greater focus in mind.

I want help. Here I am Garren, I am telling you out loud, I want help and I need help. I don't ask for it, and thus I shouldn't expect it, but I need it. It is a humbling realization for me, and after 10 years of marriage I am sure you can understand why. And I am not just talking about the trash, and dishes and diapers. Somewhere along the way it became my job to tend to the house and the kids and your job to go to work and make money, and we just shared a place to argue about who hogged the bed at night.

We deserve more. Our kids deserve more. Our family deserves more. We need to be a family. We eat together, we pray together, we do things together. And, above all we parent together. We share the responsibility and the joy.

I want to raise our family in Christ. My kids haven't been to church in 7 months. I can't change that. Telling me to find a church won't change that, telling my kids to tell me that I should be taking them to church (is low) and won't change that.

My husband and I have to throw out all of the excuses of homesickness and discomfort with new people and new religious experiences and go and worship with our kids. When Gracie was less than a year old I made the proclamation to Garren that our children would be raised in a church. It took a long and painful road, but by the age of 3 our Gracie was in church nearly every Sunday. She sang in the choir, she did Bible School. Not that these are markers of a good Christian, but they are a good foundation.

And, church isn't the end of that Christian road. We have to set examples for our children, and each other. I would like to think that we are good role models, but we could do so much better. I find as the kids get older and more difficult my patience slips more and more, and things I didn't mean to say or do are falling out all over the place. My compassion not only for the kids, but for others is severely lacking these days. I am so angry with my situation, that it is poisoning other parts of my daily life.

I have to ask for forgiveness, and I have to forgive myself. Garren and I have to work together to not only teach our children love for God and for others, but to show it through our actions and our words.

I want a simpler life. Now, this one might be the hardest goal. If it were completely up to me (in this empowering "I want to change my life" mode) I would call Comcast and have them cut off the cable, and the internet access.

And, that would be just plain silly...and would in fact end my marriage.

Garren needs the internet for work, and I enjoy blogging and finding fun ideas. But, I know we both use it way too much. It sucks me in for a completely different reason. I find comfort in it, like binge eating or something. I live vicariously through the mom bloggers I mentioned earlier, and through Facebook friends. But mostly I stay glued constantly refreshing my email box and Facebook page hoping someone will remember me.

Yep, that is super sad.

I don't spend all of my time on it, and it isn't the only distraction. Sprout is on almost 24/7. When Gracie was young I had PBS on low for background noise. We would play and read and do all sorts of things, but I found that it was too creepy quiet in that small apartment without some background noise. She's not little any more, and there is no lack of noise in this house.

My children do not need to have the TV on all the time. It is only recently that I noticed that they are sitting and being sucked in to it's programming. The TV used to be on as they ran around, now neither of them listen or hear me, they are too in-tuned to whatever show is currently on.

Now, I am super obsessive about what they watch, but even all day PBS isn't healthy. And so much obsession over my only source of adult interaction isn't healthy either, and though he will hate me for this, neither is a 18 hour constant stream of information.

We have to break away from the technology. I am not saying adopt an Amish lifestyle, but we have to spend more time away from the TV and the computer. Now, I do a lot of hands on things with the kids, but there needs to be more. I did so much with Gracie, and I am seriously not doing enough with Thomas.

We should be reading together, making or doing or walking or playing or something--together. Not with background noise, and with phone and computers off. There has to be away to turn these things off without allowing any kind of work commitments to suffer.

I want a better marriage. No, we don't have a bad marriage, or dysfunctional one. I just think it could be better. We hardly talk about anything that isn't work. He talks politics that I don't understand while I attempt to hide my boredom, I talk only about the kids while he types away on his laptop.

Now, we have broached this subject before and his solution is a babysitter. We don't have a babysitter and I can not leave my babies with a stranger. I just can't. So, getting to know people who I could eventually trust (slightly enough) to watch our children for occasional date nights is on the "to-do" list, but so is talking and listening about things other than "work."

I want to be healthier. Now, it isn't some big shock that I am fat, and I would love to lose weight, but weight loss and depression (serious depression) go hand in hand for me, so there is no sense in trying to make some unrealistic goal for that. I want to be healthier in general. Since the move I have been having what I am sure are panic attacks, although they seem like the start of a heart attack (I decide in my panic) and then I panic more. I have gained too many pounds to count over the months of my homesickness, and I just plain feel exhausted and cruddy all the time.

Goal one: listen to my husband and make a doctor's appointment. I have successfully put this off for almost a year.

I want us all to get healthy. Gracie is no longer the healthy eater she once was, and we have too much junk in this house. Now, I am going to avoid another mistake and not declare that all sugar and fat be thrown away. That wouldn't work anyway. We just need to make better choices TOGETHER, and show our children how to make better choices. And that means a significant cut in eating out. I am too embarrassed (seriously) to tell you how often we have been eating out since I had Thomas. Heck, since we moved here. At least in Strasburg you had to drive a ways to get to take out.



So, there it is. It looks all neat typed out and explained. Finding a healthy balance with family and food and time and God will not be that easy to hammer out. But, it has become my most important goal. A goal that I will fight harder for than any other. I have made the decision that I don't want to just "live." I want my life to be full and happy and good, and I want to raise my children and show them all that life can be for them. I don't want them to see how hard life is and how miserable it is, and how everyone will let you down and you can't count on anything and any one.

I want to live life to the fullest and I want them to live that way too.

So, wish us luck...or better yet say an extra prayer.

Share this post