Mrs. Matlock is an amazing woman. I met her through Alphabe Thursday, a weekly meme, she hosts based on the alphabet. She has the unique ability to draw bloggers from lots of different types blogs together to share, visit, and befriend each other. Mrs. Matlock pretends to be a strict school teacher on Thursdays. While in reality she is the fraternity mom to almost eighty bloggers weekly. She makes sure we complete her writing tasks, gives us her take on our posts, and writes many of us e-mails to further encourage us and inquire about our lives. We are so fortunate to have her in our lives. Today you get to be fortunate too. She has written an amazing post for us!
We adorn our walls with peel-off vinyl letters, calendars and beautiful, handmade, wooden signs that remind us, “”Life is not measured by how many breaths you take, but by how many moments take your breath away”, “Don’t dream your life, live your dreams”, and “Live every day of your life.”
And sometimes, when we read those reminders or turn our calendars to a particularly compelling page, we feel it. It permeates us to our very souls; we remind ourselves that, “Yes, I will slow my life down. I will pay attention. I will be present in each moment.”
And sometimes when we read those reminders, we feel like a failure. Oh, we mean to slow down. We mean to pay attention. We mean to be present. But it’s hard, isn’t it?
Life seems to realy just get in the way of…well…life. Children get sick. We say ‘yes’ to a few too many commitments. We honestly intend to do it all, but it’s too much. And we feel like failures at our own lives.
We watch other people who seem able to do it all. They work, bake birthday cakes in the shape of their child’s favorite movie character (from scratch, no less!) and celebrate every obscure holiday with handmade decorations and clever themes. They picnic, haul their family to sports WITH nutritious snacks, find time to exercise AND keep a perfect house.
We’re certain they live their lives truly and completely by quotation and we fall well short in our own minds.
As a mother and grandmother, I have a few thoughts about trying to live like this.
Most of the time, it doesn’t work. We get so caught up in trying to create perfect memories, we forget to pause and just ‘be’ in the moment with our families.
A common quotation of my ‘motherhood era’ was, ‘Cleaning and scrubbing can wait ‘til tomorrow, children grow up we’ve learned to our sorrow, so fly away cobwebs and dust go to sleep, I’m minding my baby and babies don’t keep.”
Oh that caused me anguish! As a young mother, I felt every single failure profoundly. I watched the parade of time pass by and, although I spent a lot of hours with my children in many creative and loving ways, I was never able to embrace the philosophy of cobwebs flying away and dust disappearing. It bothered me. I needed my house to be clean.
It was impossible for me to find balance between the perfection I thought other mothers achieved and what my life really was.
I was exhausted. And haggard. And sometimes, to be quite candid, not a whole lot of fun.
When I finally realized the expectations I’d set for myself were unattainable, I recognized that in order to slow down and be fully present I needed to prioritize things in life.
I created a list of the finite firsts and lasts most important to me in my children’s lives. My list contained the number of times I hoped an event would occur while they were still living with me. It was surprising to discover how few they were in number:
First and last days of school – 13
Losing the first tooth – 1
Christmas – 18
Easter Egg hunts – 18
And so on.
When I was finished, my list contained about twenty entries that I carefully wrote on my calendar each year, along with the usual dates to celebrate family and friends birthdays and anniversaries.
My new goal was to be fully present on each of the days on that list. I planned for them with the careful attention I would use for any ‘can’t miss’ event. The rest of the time I did the best I could.
Sure, I tried to read to my kids every night, listen to their worries and find a smile when I was totally stressed out over money or marital issues. But it didn’t always work for me. Sometimes I parked them in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal for dinner. Sometimes I told them they were giving me a headache.
But I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying or lamenting over those days. I did my best.
As my children left the nest, I continued some of the traditions I’d started: making certain to send a silly pair of socks in the mail on St. Patrick’s Day, Easter baskets, egg hunts, etc. The habit of focusing on my list of priorities had become ingrained in my mind.
If I was going to try to live by quotation now, it would be the single word, “Balance.”
For me, trying to live up to the perceived perfection of everyone else’s abilities, standards and accomplishments was far too difficult. I’d been so busy trying to make things special, I’d sometimes forgotten to hit the ‘pause button’ and enjoy the moments I’d been scrambling to create.
Balance.
Slow down.
Let quotations influence moments in your life, but don’t feel like a failure when every moment doesn’t feel like a quotation.
Save some of yourself for you.
Love Life is the best advice anyone can give . I am reminded about Mary and Martha. Martha was worried about work and too busy to pause and take a moment to enjoy His presence and to do His will, unlike Mary who chose the better thing to do .
Lovely post. I love the idea of being present for the scheduled big events in their lives.
Wow. Thanks for the lovely intro. I’ll put a link on my blog to this as soon as I do the lemon drawing! Looking forward to this series.
Of course I love this! After all, I love everything Jenny writes.
=)
That Jenny is a wise woman. True…babies DON’T keep and we just need to focus on the biggest things we can…and let the rest slip by.
xo
There is some very good advice there. I often wish I could do things over, but know I did the best that I could at the time.
It all rings true. Nothing seems more important “I’m minding my baby, and babies don’t keep”!~Ames
thanks for that! and so true. I have quotations all over my wall. but they are hard to live up to. It is so easy to feel guilty for so much.
JDaniel’s mom: thanks for visiting my blog!:)
If I had a quotation, it would be “Balance!” you’ve convinced me. I think you are right. It is so hard, but so key.
I just realized I do have a decal quotation, but it’s in the boys room and it says, “No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed”. Good advice everywhere I turn.
Thanks for this post. I like your writing style and your philosophy. I find it so helpful to have advice from people who have “been there done that”. Sometimes I wonder where my journey is going, and if I’m doing the right thing. Balance. Soothing words for me!
I often find myself busy planning perfect days, picnics, holidays – I plan too much and then I dont get to play and relax and have fun. So now I just try to stop and play more. The dishes will be there forever, but my little ones wont.
Yes, I do love it and I’m heading over to tell Jenny right now!
I just loved reading this. I love the line about “babies don’t keep”. This is so true. I used to rush around trying to create perfect moments and take perfect pictures. I realized one day when I was scrap booking the perfect moment that the pictures were great but I really hadn’t been present and enjoyed the moment. I’ve tried to slow down more and enjoy the moment!
Thank you for hosting Jenny and thank you Jenny for writing so beautifully.
Oh, I just love Jenny. She never fails to inspire me – and she’s a great friend! I needed to read this today – thank you for sharing her wisdom with all of us!
This is me exactly! I know I can’t do everything perfectly, but I sure try. Its exhausting being Mom. What an eye-opener though, with so few first days and Easters.
What a great post! I watch my sister-in-law let life pass her by because she’s so worried about what comes next all the time.
lovely…and ringing with truth
I have no words. I love this post. Plain & simple!
Great blog post. Came over from the SITS comment hour.
Such a thought provoking post…Of course I’ve come to expect that here 🙂
Stopped by from #commenthour
Stopping by from SITSGirls CommentHour. Fantastic words of wisdom! Thanks for reminding us all…
Great post and wonderful blog!
Yep, time keeps ticking away and we need to make sure we are present there in mind or we might miss it! I have had to learn that lesson over and over. I think I’m finally catching on.
Life isn’t perfect. Very nice post. And thought provoking. I need to remind myself to find humor in my misfortunes, not an easy task. ♥
I agree, balance. I struggled with that as my sons were growing.
I LOVE this post! It is so true! I recently read a post about how we need to remember that our blogs are expressions of our life and memories… but if we try and life life according to what we think will be a good post then we have lost our joy…
I too am trying to find more balance and trying to let go of my ideas of the perfect life….
This is GREAT! I’m in a season where the house constantly seems to be cluttered and a mess. I’ve come to accept that it’s a part of this season with our children and that it will pass. One day the house will be in better shape again and we’ll be better able to keep it that way day-to-day. For now, we’re going to enjoy this stage of our children’s lives as much as we can, and the cleanliness/neatness of the house will just have to be less than desirable. I’m okay with it. (But when it’s hard is when family or others are visiting and you feel like you have to apologize!)
Thank you for this. I’m going to save it as a reminder. My boys are still very young and I find myself constantly struggling with the balance to be everything and do everything as perfectly as I had always imagined. It’s not easy.
I find myself not living in the now and not enjoying the moment now. Life is such an adventure. I wish I could go back in time to change certain things.
stopping by from #commenthour at sits
Life living it in the present is hard and it does look like everyone else has it figured out
Stopping by from #CommentHour – fantastic advice. Life definitely isn’t perfect.
“Balance.”
SO VERY TRUE!
I tried to find Jenny’s posting of this on her blog, but I couldn’t find it.
I missed @CommentHour tonight, but I still wanted to come by and visit.
Blessings!
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That was a beautiful reminder. Great guest poster.
Great post! I touched on something similar on my blog, where I am forgiving myself for all the things I haven’t done-mostly cleaning related, lol. We do need to be more aware, less ‘plugged in’ =)
new follower from the comment hour-a bit late!
love this…………. thanks for sharing a great guest post