Today was a good day. A busy, upside down, good day. GoGo offered to come be me for a day while I worked, so I headed for Houston. I had a good day at work, doing something I'm way excited about...work has been pretty stressful for a while now, and it was a nice break to have a day to just focus on something I really wanted to be doing. Don't get me wrong--I love my job, I'm grateful for the work, I love my coworkers and my district...but I've just been feeling torn lately. I have a great life here in Brenham, and I have a great job--it's selfish and childish of me to complain, but I wish the two weren't mutually exclusive. Don't think I'm giving myself too much credit here, because I'm no pop star, but sometimes the "Hannah Montana" song plays in my head..."the best of both worlds..." because that's what it feels like when I explain what it means to be a consultant to people. Truthfully, I'm a really well-paid part-time worker. Respected and valued and all of that, yeah (don't want to take anything away from my district--I love you guys!)...but a part-time worker nonetheless. I don't fully fit in my Mommy world because I do have a great job...and I don't fully fit in my work world because I get to walk away at the end of the day, drive out of the city and into a simpler life where I get to spend a ton of quality time with my kids and my husband. It's a great life. They're BOTH great lives. So why am I just...churning...right now? Sigh.
Here's something else that's really working on me...I notice this a lot with parents, myself included. We work really hard to make it look like we've got it all covered, and that it all comes easy. But how many of us are one person in public and another at home? I know I am SOOOOOOOOOOO guilty of this. This is another thing that's just got me churning inside...my parenting. But that's another story. In the conversation I'm about to tell you about, my friend and I also talked about how much easier it is when we have friends' kids over, how it makes us be the parent we want to be all of the time...friendly, engaged but not too engaged, caring but not too caring, nice but not fake nice...all that stuff. Why can't I just BE that parent all the time? Why do I get lazy at the end of a long day and quit trying with the people closest to me when I've shown my best self to everyone else all day long, from the homeless guy around town to acquaintances to friends to family...but not the three people who mean the most to me. See, another story...another day.
And then there's our marriages--I know someone who's at a crossroads. It's a familiar place for me, as James and I stood there 10 years ago and had to decide whether to travel on together, or go our separate ways. Oh, come on--don't look shocked. The fact of the matter is, the first two years of our marriage we were young. And dumb. And selfish. And dumb. Did either of us break a vow? Nope, but we bent the hell out of the whole "respect" one. We were both stressed, learning new jobs and trying to be adults--but the joke was so on us. We had the most unrealistic expectations of what life was "supposed" to be like after college, what we were "entitled" to have. Here's an aside: our generation sucks. We expect to have everything our parents took a lifetime to build overnight--and to have it all handed to us on a silver platter with our college diplomas. I'll let you know when I get mine, friends. We are STILL paying for that thinking--hello, credit card debt and living above our means. Goodbye, all sense of reality.
Sighing again--stupid, stupid selfish kids--that was us. Silly, in love kids, thank God for that, because when we came to the crossroads and looked each other in the eye, we saw that we HATED the place we'd come to be...but we didn't want to go on alone. We wanted away from the pain and confusion, not away from each other. It wasn't crazy dramatic, nobody left, nobody got hurt--but we had to learn how to communicate and share and be a team. You'd think we'd have picked some of that up in our premarital counseling, but not so much--we were more interested in the wedding flowers, I think.
Anyway...so much on my mind. I talked to one of my favorite teachers today, and she's struggling. It sounded so much like me my first year of teaching--I was DYING every day, but I hid it and nobody knew how hard it was for me. I cried every day until Halloween, when our interim principal and I had a long talk and she explained about how the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and I needed to ask for help. She was actually very, very helpful and when she said it it was soooooooo much cooler (fun fact, and one of the many reasons I love where I work: she was my elementary school principal!). But she was right--I was so busy looking and acting like everything was going well that people bought it. That's what this teacher is going through, and my heart hurts for her. It sucks to struggle and have people know, but it also hurts to struggle and nobody knows that you need help. That sounds weird, but if you have trouble asking for help (here I am! Me, right here!), you get it.
Marriage, parenting, work...why do we all spend so much time on PR? I heard this song on the way home today when I was deep in thought, and it really struck a chord with me. Get it? Hee hee. Anyway...I don't think my life is perfect or looks perfect from the outside, not saying that. But I think we spend a lot of time working on people's impressions of us when we should be working on US. (That us is me, friends...you don't have to raise your hand.)
Lead Me (Sanctus Real)
I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying
"Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?
Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone."
I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They're just children from the outside
I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine
They're independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying
"Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?
Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone."
So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I am called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won't you lead me?
To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't want to leave them hungry for love
Chasing dreams that I could give up
I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this out home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone
Father, lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone
So that's what I wrote while I was waiting on James to get off work so we could have a date. (Thanks again, GoGo!) We sat at Starbucks for a while and talked, then we decided to go to Rendevous (a wine bar here in town that we'd heard had great food) since we were child-free. Neither of us were starving, so we ordered a couple of beers and a couple of appetizers and just ate and talked and hung out for a while. We needed that. I needed that--I needed some down time with my Boy. And the rumors were right, the food was great!
Today was a good day--I know GoGo is so not judgmental about how the house looks, but with things so busy at work I haven't "cleaned" like I'd like, so I took a few minutes this morning to clean the bathroom and dust...little things, but I've been putting them off and it felt great to have them off my list. Then tonight when we got home, we had a few minutes so we went out and planted the rest of the plants that have been wilting in their little flats...don't know if they'll survive, but they're all in the ground now. Loose ends drive me nuts, so it feels good to have had a great personal day today AND a great work day. I had a lot on my mind, and a lot of time to think and work through some of it today. I feel better! Hey, it's the best of both worlds after all. :)
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