My Life Is Not My Own
They have said it all my life, "Your life is not your own." I have heard it no less than a thousand times. Honestly, though, I have never felt that my life wasn't, at least in the most practical ways, my own... until now.
Before you write me off as some faithless fool that refuses truth, indulge me for a moment.
I have dreamt about these days all of my life. All I ever wanted to do was be somebody's wife and the mama in a houseful of kids. In the 6th grade, we were assigned the responsibility of caring for an egg as if it were a pet or a child. This is going to sound crazy, but I loved that egg! I tended to it's every need, nurturing it, making it a tiny carrier and blanket to cozy into as I toted it around town on Saturday errands with my mom. It was a momentary fix for my desperate need to nurture someone and to be needed.
I was born for la vida domestica.
What I didn't realize, even after #7, was how complicated things could become. No one warned me that the physical requirements of this life would exhaust me on a daily basis. No one prepared me for the fact that the sound of screaming and crying would pierce my ears on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Who knew, no matter how long I worked to make a meal for my family, someone would always complain?
I didn't know that there was any chance my kids would reject me, disrespect me openly, and hate me for reasons beyond my understanding. I didn't know there would be days when I wanted to leave the house and never come back.
My nights are long and sleepless. My heart is heavy. I'm grasping at hope as if chasing the wind.
So here I am, tucked into the only quiet moment of my day, after everyone else is sound asleep.
I feel it in a very real, almost tangible way; my life is not my own. I know it. I believe it. There's no denying it. I am not my own. The decisions I make, the words I say, every part of my life is indelibly linked to ten other lives.
>panic<. ...inhale... and embrace it. Therein lies my freedom.
As long as it's not mine, I can rest in the fact that I don't have to have all the answers. My destiny is not hinged on how well I perform or how my kids turn out. My life is a vapor. All I have to do is finish. When it is packaged up in these simple terms, I can get my head around it; might as well finish strong!
Lvb
Before you write me off as some faithless fool that refuses truth, indulge me for a moment.
I have dreamt about these days all of my life. All I ever wanted to do was be somebody's wife and the mama in a houseful of kids. In the 6th grade, we were assigned the responsibility of caring for an egg as if it were a pet or a child. This is going to sound crazy, but I loved that egg! I tended to it's every need, nurturing it, making it a tiny carrier and blanket to cozy into as I toted it around town on Saturday errands with my mom. It was a momentary fix for my desperate need to nurture someone and to be needed.
I was born for la vida domestica.
What I didn't realize, even after #7, was how complicated things could become. No one warned me that the physical requirements of this life would exhaust me on a daily basis. No one prepared me for the fact that the sound of screaming and crying would pierce my ears on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Who knew, no matter how long I worked to make a meal for my family, someone would always complain?
I didn't know that there was any chance my kids would reject me, disrespect me openly, and hate me for reasons beyond my understanding. I didn't know there would be days when I wanted to leave the house and never come back.
My nights are long and sleepless. My heart is heavy. I'm grasping at hope as if chasing the wind.
So here I am, tucked into the only quiet moment of my day, after everyone else is sound asleep.
I feel it in a very real, almost tangible way; my life is not my own. I know it. I believe it. There's no denying it. I am not my own. The decisions I make, the words I say, every part of my life is indelibly linked to ten other lives.
>panic<. ...inhale... and embrace it. Therein lies my freedom.
As long as it's not mine, I can rest in the fact that I don't have to have all the answers. My destiny is not hinged on how well I perform or how my kids turn out. My life is a vapor. All I have to do is finish. When it is packaged up in these simple terms, I can get my head around it; might as well finish strong!
Lvb
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