Good in a bad day?Or bad in a good way?
It feels good to be alive - to feel the wind on my face - the smell of fresh rain filling the air - a multitude of birds bursting with song - my strong body moving beneath me - and immense gratitude in my heart. Yes. Today it feels good to be alive.
Unlike yesterday. Yesterday sucked. Maybe it was the tornados. Maybe it was the government website. Maybe it was the dog. I don’t know who to blame. Why do we have to blame anyone anyway? Well, if I needed to blame someone, I would probably choose the government because nature is wild and unpredictable and dangerous and that’s what makes it so cool, and well, my dog is my faithful buddy who is always there for me - even though he drives me almost insane when he constantly gets in fights with skunks. So yes, let’s blame the government.
Well, now that we got that out of the way, let me get back to my story. It was just a crappy day. I spent hours on a government website trying to type out my application and answer a ton of questions. I have been applying for a substitute teacher job near where we are moving to so I can get to know the community while having a small source of income since I am still working on building Freedom For The Taking. I was applying to several different schools and one of them sent me to this government website which stores all your information. It’s supposed to serve as a way to connect you to any opportunities in Missouri. It SEEMED like it would be helpful and wise, so I started the process. It was laborious and annoying. (You would think government websites would be updated and easy to use, but then again, Nate said that’s how government websites are. Weird. #dobettergovernment #whathappenedtobeingforthepeople?)
Anywho…I was determined to make it to the end of the application process. I had been at it for hours and told myself I couldn’t get lunch until I finished. It was 1:30 pm and I was on the second to last page when . . . the website glitched and I lost my work. It wasn’t just simple info either. It was a bunch of difficult questions about my teaching philosophy, methods, and approaches. My body froze. I was in shock. Rage started to fill me. WTF. I tried to restore my work but it was gone. I sat for a moment in disbelief, then I closed my computer. “I’m done,” I told myself, and I got up to go make myself some lunch. Eventually, as I attempted to eat, I couldn’t hold it together and tears spilled down my face. I decided to go out and give my horse, Zelle, her fish oil and treat her fungus. When I went outside I saw that a huge storm was about to hit. I hurriedly got Zelle, and as we came into the barn, my dog, Dayo, was on the floor, finishing up the last of Zelle’s oatmeal/oil mixture. It’s not cheap oil either. It’s $89 a gallon and she gets 4 ounces a day. It was the last straw. I was already extremely frustrated - which is never a good combination when dealing with animals. I yelled at Dayo and shut him in the backyard while I rushed to make a new mixture to feed Zelle. It had started raining.
After I finally finished with Zelle, I went inside and started cleaning up the kitchen. My son, Jaden, is home right now working on finding a summer job and he was on his computer at the dining room table. I told him about the dog eating Zelle’s food. “I’m so sorry mom. That’s really frustrating,” he replied. The kindness in his voice undid me. I tried but I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring down my face. A moment later my son came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. The real pain surfaced and I sobbed about being frustrated that I had spent a year trying to get different jobs in an attempt to try something new. It all just felt like a waste of my time because no one has hired me. “Every time I fill out a new application it feels like I have nothing to show for the last forty years of my life,” I lamented. Jaden just held me and reminded me that my worth had nothing to do with what other people did or didn’t see in me. He reminded me that being an entrepreneur is extremely hard and takes a long time and a lot of effort. “Mom you take care of your family and all the animals on the farm all while trying to start several other businesses. Other people have a hard time and aren’t even juggling everything you are.” His words brought me comfort and my sobbing started to subside.
Right then Nate called me and told me that we should get into the tornado shelter. There was a tornado nearby, headed our direction. My son and I spent the next couple of hours in and out of the shelter. There were several storms that seemed to just hang out right over the top of us with a lot of dangerous rotation in the clouds. My girls got stuck at school inside the shelters with all the other kids. I kept calling the schools to check on them but, since they were also taking shelter, no one answered. I wanted to let them know I was taking shelter so I couldn’t drive to get them at the moment. Eventually, the storms moved on and I was able to go get my girls. We were all thankful that we didn’t get hit by the tornado, even though it did get scary a few times with large hail and high winds.
Needless to say, it was quite a day.
We never know how our day will turn out and, honestly, that’s probably a good thing. I would be tempted to skip all my hard days if I knew about them ahead of time.
As I sit here typing this out, I am thinking about the beautiful moments I would have missed: My son wrapping his large, strong arms around me and the silly short videos we watched and laughed at together in the tornado shelter. Isn’t it strange that in the midst of shitty life situations, such beauty can exist? The situations that undo us and bring up past trauma, are also opportunities for vulnerability and connection.
Maybe the world won’t see all the hard work I have done over the past 40 years, but little by little, I am learning that it doesn’t matter so much what everyone else thinks. I have three, amazing, beautiful, intuitive, caring kids. That doesn’t happen by accident. I am very aware that I have done a LOT of things wrong in my parenting and there are so many things I wish I could undo. I cannot and will not take all the glory for their awesomeness. I do know that there must be something I did right - because of the honest, loving relationship I and my kids have. I haven’t wasted my life. I have invested it in my children, and now I am learning to invest in myself.
Yes, I will always have regrets. Regrets are important things for us to learn from. But one thing I have never regretted was my kids. There are many simple moments throughout each day that I simply stop and take in their awesomeness. It fills my soul. They are such incredible humans. The long days of nursing and changing a million diapers are gone and now we are onto bigger things. Things like helping them adult, manage big emotions, navigate middle school, get a job, use their voice, be responsible, and for god’s sake please clean up after yourself.
It’s a wild life, raising kids all while still trying to raise myself. Isn’t that crazy? We never do get it all figured out. That’s the catch to all this. It’s not about perfect parenting; it’s not about being successful in the eyes of our culture; it’s not about “the right way to do it”. It’s about living - life - living life wholeheartedly. It’s going to look different for everyone. That’s the gift though! We all get to choose what works best for us.
I want to leave you with one last thing that is very near and dear to my heart: It’s okay if your values change. In fact, it’s good. I used to value my kids so much that I abandoned myself. That isn’t me today though, and I love that my kids are now free to value themselves. No one has to lose when you choose your freedom.
Sometimes it takes a shitty day for me to see the lies that I have been believing in my head. Substitute teacher or not - Non-profit or not - I’m still valuable. I am lovable. I am worthy of absolute happiness.
So are you.
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