It's one thing to know something in your head, and another thing to have someone hold up a ginormous mirror and have you take a good, long look. I've been okay with the person I saw in the mirror up until today, because you know, she's not bad. But today I looked a little deeper, and I had a flash of my future relationship with my daughter, and that was enough to make me realize that I have to change NOW so I can change THEN.
Why blog about this? Because a lot of us are walking around, exactly the people we were raised to be. But what if...just what if...you could be more than your parents ever hoped? What if you could be more than you ever dared dream? What if you let go of the mirror for a while, and focused not on what you see but what you WANT to see? Who's stopping us? Just us. Because it's easy to be who I am, I've been her for a long time. Like I said, she's not bad. But with a little tweaking, she could be pretty awesome...and that's what my daughter deserves. She deserves to grow up with a mom who's beautiful and happy and not afraid of either, so she can do the same. She deserves to grow up with a mom who smiles more than she frowns, who accepts more than she criticizes...but who can correct in a loving way when necessary. She deserves a mom who's willing to do what it takes to be happy, to teach her to be the same in the long run. She deserves me, only better.
The image that kept coming to me on the drive back to Brenham today was a caterpillar. On it's own, not bad--cool little thing, really. But not living up to its full potential, and that's sad. If a caterpillar KNOWS it can be a butterfly and chooses to remain a caterpillar...it's just wrong. Not knowing is one thing, but knowing and ignoring is wrong.
Hmm. If you're still with me, you'll agree that I probably need a nap. The day started at 3 AM, and I think the past few really emotional days are catching up with me. It's probably a good thing I had to beg off from Bunco tonight--I probably wouldn't be a lot of fun. You know when you start REALLY looking at your life and seeing it, for the first time in a long time, if ever? It's addictive...I want to be more than I am, but first I have to accept who I am and why. And there's forgiveness to be given and received, all around.
Dave Ramsey talks about changing your family tree, by raising kids who buy what they can afford instead of what they want, save, etc. It's a huge paradigm shift, and before we were DR fans we thought it was oh, so pretentious that people would dare to say things like that. But today I realized that we all have the potential to change our family tree. Our parents (well, I hope your parents are like this, too!) want more for us than they had, and we want the same things, too. But too often we get stuck emotionally in living the way we were raised, good or bad...and I think, truly, we all SHOULD change our family trees. Maybe pick just one thing we want our kids to do better than we do, and work on changing it in ourselves so our kids can see it. Maybe we'll hug more, yell less (or hey, what about not at all? Okay, very little...), play more, run less, enjoy more, worry less...you get the idea. It's pretty interesting to think of what a very small change to our M.O. could do to our children's future...and their own parenting. Pretty powerful stuff for a Monday.
Sigh. Think I'll grab a quick nap while Noble's down (not without much protesting) and Kayci's "resting" in front of the TV (she's got a fever, he's at the tail-end...yea!). A lot on my mind...been feeling the last few days like I'm on those stupid diet pills again. If I'm gonna be all emotional, shouldn't I have the added benefit of the weight loss? Hmm...maybe I'll call Dr. Z.
Hee hee. Just kidding, boy. I'll pull it together soon. Just sifting through things in my mind, trying to make sense of it all.
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