Help.

Many a blog post has been written by a weary mother lamenting the applause-less life she leads. The dishes. The laundry. The never-ending tasks to be repeated over and over again, with no one to thank her, no one to notice, wondering if she can continue day after day of this. Today, I am one of them. I've read the encouraging e-mail forwards and blog posts on how we're building cathedrals and how we're molding little lives. I know. I've heard it. And while I need all the encouragement I can get, sometimes I also just need to throw out (whether anyone cares or hears), "Hey, this is freaking hard!" And while I would not go back to work and I would not trade places with my husband, there are days when I am overwhelmed by the mess, by the ceaseless needs, by the bizillion and one things I do that go unnoticed. And while I love homeschooling and think it's super-cool, it is no cakewalk to teach a 7-year-old and 5-year-old the essentials of life while keeping a one-year-old (boy) from eating the rocks and bark fragments the older two have dropped while making a Pilgrim house (their idea, not mine.)



Today I was simply overwhelmed by my reality. It hit me at 2:12 p.m. I was still in my pajamas, teeth unbrushed, face unwashed, finally sitting down to a cold lunch that I refused to reheat again, certain that one more nuke would annhilate the few nutrients left in my leftover stir-fry. I had a big fat pity party. I cried. And because I wanted my pity party to be a really good one, I imagined a gospel choir singing in the background, Noboby knows the trouble I've seen. I toil endlessly all day long and yet I'm still staring at 3 loads of laundry that will not fold itslf. I have swept the floor seven times just today. The ironing. The dishwasher to unload. And then there's the master bedroom, that supposed retreat for the weary, the ostensible sensual sanctuary for me and my man...yet I'm greeted with a pile of baby toys, a folding table with a big ol' computer (lugged down from the attic because Brownie dropped my laptop last Friday and now it's dead), and the contents of my closet strewn about the precious little leftover space because I decided to gut the area last week, thereby begginning yet another project that remains to be finished. (Do you think that's a run-on sentence?)



A dear friend sent me this post from another blog. It's amazing. And it echoes way more beautifully and poetically everything I'm saying here...only there's a point to all of it. So, if you're like me and you're waving the white flag of surrender, click here...and know that it all matters.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2008/12/what-withstands-fire-open-letter-to.html