The girl I used to be...

There once was a twenty something year old girl with two little boys. She prided herself on her organization and cleanliness. While the children were napping she would do craft and home improvement projects- even going around the house and touching up the paint. As soon as it snowed she was out shoveling and her driveway was the cleanest in the neighborhood. She taught a class on how to be organized and keep a clean house to much wiser and kinder mothers. Kinder because they didn't throw anything at her!

This girl yearned for more children and after the conventional way wasn't working she and her husband had a plan. She cleaned other people's toilets and he delivered newspapers- they were supposed to do it together but the girl was crying after a week!! Eventually they were blessed with a little girl from Korea. Her room was ready and all her pink and purple clothes were hanging waiting for her. The girl was still organized and had a clean house.

Then this girl who was getting older by the way, was blessed with two more children. She could hardly believe her luck! Sometimes she would lie in bed at night and cry because she just couldn't understand why she was given the life of her dreams. She also cried because her house was no longer as clean as it used to be and she was anything but organized.

Then this girl, now an almost forty year old woman went through the trial of her life. She cried and cried and wondered what happened to her perfect, clean, organized life. She just knew it had been too good to be true.

Now years later this forty something year old woman is living in a kind of clean house and is kind of organized and her family is kind of not so perfect. She can smile when the sun is shining through the kitchen window showing every crumb and grease spot that was hidden in the darkness of winter. She laughs when she goes to appointments a week early. She enjoys her children much more and because she has spent some time in emotional darkness she is able to appreciate and savor the good times. Her priorities have changed and she feels fufilled giving to her family even though it means saying no to other things.

Her house is not as clean and she is not as organized but she is peaceful and happy. She is so glad not to be that twenty something girl anymore!!