This is a Job for Future Mom

On Sunday, I awoke to four hands bringing a steamy cup of coffee to my bedside. Mother's Day could have ended right there and it would have been lovely. But it didn't.

Amid hugs and snuggles, some of the coffee sloshed and spilled. And after bounding inside from the rain, the dog wanted to get in on the celebration and leaped upon the bed with her muddy paws. The bed with freshly-washed sheets that now had smeary paw prints stamped alongside the coffee splatters.

The Man and I looked at each other and just laughed. The rain had washed away his plans for a Mother's Day picnic and his back-up restaurant was closed. We ended up eating bad Mexican food at a local buffet while our mannerless children bounced around in the booth and dripped queso all over their Sunday clothes. 

Our life is a beautiful mess.

Most days I see more mess than I see beautiful, but as the months and years pass I feel a shift. Sometimes I pause before I erupt, survey the scene with the eyes of my future self, the one whose kids have flown the coop and whose nest is tidier but also emptier.

When Future Mom and Present Mom meet up, it's a good moment. Nothing is perfect but everything is right.

When Monday morning showed up, I had dressed a toddler three times and cursed the dog more than that, all before 9 am. I'd gone to bed ridiculously late and didn't get my run in. I was tired and cranky. The kitchen was a mess, the laundry undone, the paint peeling. I'd just planted flowers and yet the weeds were winning. Also? It was raining. Again.

Sometimes mess simply trumps beauty. Or so my eyes and mind would have me believe. But it's never true. Never.

There is life pulsing hard and loud and messy in this place. Life! And there is nothing more beautiful than that.

On rainy, chaotic Mondays and messy, overwhelming Wednesdays, Future Mom stands beside me, loving and stern, and tells me to inhale all that I see and exhale thanks. And of course Present Mom is prone to look up at her with a roll of the eyes, and say something sassy in reply. {Present Mom wishes Future Mom would do a little time travel and help a sister out with the laundry.}

But she doesn't do laundry. She only speaks truth. 

Present Mom tells me to change the circumstances {or the wall color or the furniture or the behavior of my children} and life will be beautiful.

But Future Mom tells me that it's already beautiful. Choose to see what you already have, she says. It's everything you ever dreamed of and more.

If you're drowning in mess and can't quite grab hold of all the beauty, I can give you Future Mom's phone number. She's always available and the best kind of bossy.