Maybe They'll Even Mean Something

I am a perfectionist.

It's true.

I even took a personality quiz the other day that told me; so it must be true. It was on the internet.

I don't mean that I do everything perfectly, not anywhere near perfect. But I have a need for perfection or completion. If the dish pile is too large for me to finish it all then why even start. If I cannot completely clean my room then why even take the time to pick up a few things off the floor. If I cannot make the entire kitchen look the way I want it to, then why spend the time and money replacing the cabinet pulls to 'try' to help things.

Before kids I had more time. If I could go back and tell my 'busy' college self that I'm sure she wouldn't believe me, but I did have more time. I may have filled it with a million things but I was the one who decided how I would spend my time.

Now a kiddo will wake up a little earlier than expected and that pile of dishes I finally started gets stopped halfway through and it's like I never even touched it. So lately I find myself sweeping the floor more often and doing laundry much less. I can usually guarantee I have time to finish the floor, but the laundry 'I probably shouldn't even try to start.'

And to tell the truth, this is also the way I write.

I haven't posted anything here in quite some time. 

I sit down to write often, but often I am interrupted. I have many, many drafts saved but nothing finished. So many times I left things unfinished, that it became easier to not even sit down and write. "There's no way I'll get anything completed so I might as well do something else." And that was it.

Back in the old days of this blog I told stories about the time I thought I lost my camera at the Big 12 Championship and I rattled on about my thesis homework. Then Hannah came along and everything got a bit bigger. My words had more weight. Her story carried so much of God's truth to so many. So sometimes now I sit down to write about poopy diapers and it seems so much less significant. Why even write it?

So I decided a few nights ago that I was going to sit down and write something about not writing. I was going to make it official that I wouldn't be posting anything for a while. I'd give myself a good excuse like kids and lack of sleep and I'd be done.

But before I could write anything, today happened.

The morning was an avalanche of babies waking early and my toddler threw his milk cup at my face hard enough that I fell off of bed. My kid wouldn't stop whining while I was 'having fun' with him making cupcakes because I wouldn't let him drink the batter. I showered last night but I'm sure you wouldn't be able to tell and my five month old decided he would just stop napping altogether.

And then my husband sent me the best article about being a momma and it was perfect.

Not because it was perfectly written. Not because it used the best dollar words.

It was perfect for me because someone shared their story and I remembered that I was not the only one doing this mom thing. I was reminded that yep, these kids are going to grow up one day and I'm not going to have to get to hold them while they nap.

It reminded me that even if my story is not perfect that it's mine. It's the story that God has given me to share. Millions of people don't even have to love it to make it worth something. 

Sometimes only one person has to read it and be reminded of truth. And sometimes that person is me re-reading it a few hours or days or years later.

So I'm not "back" but I'm not "gone."

I'll be writing some time. Between the blessings and the blowouts, somehow the words will come out. And maybe, just maybe, if I've gotten more than four hours of consecutive sleep anytime in the last week, maybe they'll even mean something.