Pie chart mom

I am re-reading Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”.  I love this book.  I think it is a book I need to re-visit often because it takes me to the core of what I am doing with the story I am living. 

Today I read this: “It made me wonder if the reasons our lives seem so muddled is because we keep walking into scenes which we, along with the people around us, have no clear idea of what we want.” (location 1254 – seriously – how does one reference page # from a kindle??)

Do I know, as a clear, concise statement, what i want from my story?  Can I sum it up and be clear that it encompasses the direction I want to live, as well as what I value for my time?  Does our life-statement change over time? 

I think mine has been clear in the past, but is not clear currently.  I think for a long time my statement had one central word at its core and that word was ‘family’.  I literally put myself thru a lot to have children and to become a mom and for a long time that was the only calling I gave myself over to.  I have been naive in this pursuit – by that I mean I saw this as an all-encompassing pursuit and because it was a difficult journey for us to have kids, it became even larger and more pressing.  The result has been a slow awakening to the realization that there are deep pockets of sadness as I let parts of me die, in my quest to put those around me (namely my kids) ahead of myself.  Now, I would have to quantify that with acknowledging the nature of a needy, new child.  It’s not their fault they are not what you would call self -sufficient. They require complete care and that care, done well, is one of the most beautiful life-stories to be apart of.  I can’t imagine any scenario in which I would feel less than complete if it did not have each of my 4 kids in it.  The thing is, though, my personal story should not have only one title – Mom.  That is only a piece of a complete woman, and yet, were we to graph my life with a pie chart, the mom portion would clearly be the biggest slice.

Now it is time for a new statement.  i want to be able to know I am moving in a direction that is not muddled.  i want to know exactly what I want.  More than that, I want to be clear enough to filter all decisions thru the lense of my defined story so that my pursuits all support this vision of the life I am here to live.

It’s time to figure out what all the other slices are that I bring to the table and to redraw that chart to reflect better balance and more color.  

K

Day 2…

After yesterday, and my initial foray into uncharted blog terratory, I did feel like i had taken the time to converse.  In some small way, I felt less lonely all day. 

I am also discovering more about the blogging site i am using.  One cool feature was locating spell check.  I am a horrific speller.  When I was in twelfth grade, I was elected Secretary to the Student council.  It literally took me half the year to correctly spell secretary.  I hadn’t run for that position, given my awareness of my own literary deficiencies but the council suppervisor thought I would communicate well.  He had seen me talk thru his entire Social Studies class the year previously.   So please – disregard my spelling – I will try to correct it when I can but mostly I just don’t know how it is supposed to look.

I am re-reading a most fantastic book – a life changing book, in my opinion called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller.  It is one of those books that makes you want to sit up and take notice of your life.  He says this:

“The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”  (how does one locate page numbers on a kindle??) 

Anyway, he is talking about our life story – that if what we choose doesn’t add to the story we are telling each day, our lives are not going to add up to much of a meaningful experience.  He talks about a friend, Danielle, and says this, “I can imagine what kind of conversation God and Danielle will have, how she’ll sit and tell God the favorite parts of the story he gave her.”

This is the thing about life – it is a series of mostly normal, blase events and just every so often we are hit with the extrordinary.  I don’t mind the extrodinary – I think most of us rise to whatever it is – whether blessing or challenge.  It is finding ways to make the story more than nothingness in the every day that I struggle with.  It is about feeling like i am embracing what seems unimportant, immaterial, trite.

I think the struggle is to find the sacred in the simple, so that at the end of each day, I don’t feel like it was another day that simply didn’t matter. 

K