What happens is that every once in a while, life gets all life-y and I don't know for a minute or a month whether I'm coming or going or which way is up. Sometimes life gets all full-filly and overwhelm-y and chaotic all in one big breath and if I stop and sit down for just one second I notice that it's all passed me by. Occasionally I look around and suddenly notice that my house is an igloo built of laundry waiting to be folded and papers waiting to be graded, and I am simultaneously filled with dread and desire. Life's like that.
Three months ago I was a stay-at-home mommy and I loved and hated every minute of it. I needed those babies with everything in me, and I needed to, at least occasionally, talk to grown-ups. It was delightful and devastating to start working in August, and amazingly blissful to change jobs in September to my "made to" job! And if I'm going to be honest, I have to tell you that I love and hate every minute of it.
You see, I love love love what I do each and every day. Love it. My "day job" is amazing. My day job puts a smile on my face and in my heart and renews that sense of purpose I'd been missing. My day job puts me into the sphere of influence of 80 or so teenagers every day. My day job lets me breathe a little bit of God-breath into them each and every day. My day job rocks. My day job is everything I have ever dreamed it would be, everything I have ever wanted.
Also, I hate what I do every day. I wake my night-owl self up before 5 every morning. I wake my night-owl toddler (and two early-bird school-agers) by 5:30 every morning, and we're out the door by 6:30. I hand my toddler over to a daycare teacher (Nana, but still...) and go about my day, NOT being his Mama. It hurts my mommy-heart every single day to take that little sweetie of a boy to daycare. I spend my day NOT being the one to wipe his tears when he cries, NOT snuggling him at naptime, NOT being the one to wipe his bottom when he starts pooping in the potty. It's hard being his mommy and also NOT being his mommy. Very hard. It's not just him, either. We're back in the "Little Lou's sick; how are we going to juggle her today" routine. We're in the "Bugsy's got to have surgery, how can we shift him throughout the day so we miss as little work as possible" routine. We're in the "get home at 5, feed the kids dinner, check homework and put them to bed" routine. We're in the fast-paced, never-a-spare-minute routine. Sometimes it stinks.
Working-mom is a hard job! There's this amazing balance of who I am and who I am becoming and who I will be. There's this brilliant mix of mommy and PERSON that is unexpected and real.
There's this tiny voice that says to me every day, "Make your students proud, Mommy!" and makes me smile because I'm doing my best. There's a bigger voice, one no one hears but me, that says, "Make your God proud, Elizabeth." And so I try. I try so very hard to do everything for His glory, all day every day.
This life? Sometimes it gets all life-y. Sometimes it gets overwhelming. Sometimes it gets to be a little too much. But everyday? Every day it's amazing. Every day it's a challenge and a job and a duty to live for Him.
Every day it's beautiful.
