To Blog or not to Blog

I have a love-hate relationship with blogging. It motivates me. It discourages me. The responses inspire me. It gives me a creative outlet and allows my volatile expressive feelings to be read by only those who want to read them (sometimes my husband needs a break).

My blog intimidates me. It mocks me when I am swarmed by media telling me I should be making money from it or I should have 10,000 hits or I should install a certain widget (I’m sorry… a what?). It’s a miracle I learned how to post, upload pictures, and respond to comments. It’s the creativity- not the technology- that draws me to blog. The reason to be present and take pictures of the everyday and to write what I realize when I sit with Jesus. It pulls me back to the center of who I am as a follower of Him.

The forced solitude, processing, and expression are always good for my soul as long as I’m upbeat enough to do it for God and friends and not for affirmation.

As long as I’m upbeat.

And as our family has walked on a journey with depression, anxiety and ADD, I have made it my goal to continue communicating throughout this imperfect battle.

My hope is that we would get better, stronger and more healthy by Gods grace. Anyone close to us can attest that we have, but when the road goes low and rocky, it gets discouraging. And it’s tempting not to share. For fear of judgement. For fear of disappointing or hindering someone else’s faith. For fear of saying the wrong thing.

Then again, my reader friends wouldn’t be going through the journey with us at all if they only read the highlights.

2 days ago I sat in the emergency room with tonsilitis. When the nurse looked down my throats she ducked back and said, “Oh my!” 😒

I should have gone sooner but I was practicing my usual avoidance of the doctor and attempting various natural remedies. But Husband was leaving for 7 days and I really don’t parent well sick and alone, so if antibiotics will kick this beast…

So, I have tonsillitis. Which explained the headache, swollen neck, fever and really gross tonsils. I spent 2 solid days in bed because if I stood up I felt dizzy and chilled and had a horrid headache. And for a couple days I thought some of these symptoms were the result of depression! I was ashamed of once again feeling tired and unmotivated, and I couldn’t figure out why all the healthy choices we are making were doing nothing! And of course I was avoiding writing. Better not keep a record of this low!

And it turns out I was just sick. My tonsils were telling me to go to bed and I was ignoring them.

We have realized together that part of what got me where I got 2 years ago (sleep-deprived-with-2-tinies-in-the-himalayas-while-working-and-volunteering), was this noble ability to push through.

Push-through. I was gifted via nature and nurture to do what is needed and sometimes much more.  Both my parents are such prolific over-achievers. Graduate work, founded a large nonprofit, speaking careers, tv appearances, books written, raised 2 kids all over the globe.

While I can’t remember my moms everyday life in 1984, I assume she was running the world with one baby in a stroller, a 3 year old on her hip, striding through international airports with those lovely high-heels on.  But recently a friend told me that SHE remembers my mom then and she was ALWAYS at home. That’s all she did! Just raised two kiddos and tried to stay sane with a husband who constantly travelled.

And yet my perception that she was perfect and overachieving with tiny kids overshadows my parenting expectations. It melds with my natural tendency to run on adrenaline and turns into one giant anxious mess of a mother. Who may be overachieving but at this point, does that even matter??

All of that is off the point but also illustrates this crazy self-destructive cycle we can get in, giving and receiving super high expectations, in which the journey is only depicted when it is high and glorious.

And friends, as we all know, there are no peaks without valleys. And the defining factor for a journey well traveled is how you walked both the highs and lows, and who you walked with with.

This week it’s me bracing (ha! I mean braving!!) the world with my sweet 2 and 4-year-olds. I’m not leaning on my immediate support system (which is growing over here in our midwestern town by the way), because coincidentally every soul close to me is out of town. But there are a couple mom friends and there are things to do and parks to play at and (just a little) tv for the kids to watch… and I’m learning to do this new challenge, walking with Jesus and breathing deep.

This morning on the way home from taking Daddy to the airport my son asked me what a hymn was.

(Me) “Well a hymn is a song written to God by someone a long time ago… when there were no airplanes or cars and just farms and horses.”

“You mean… there were no Chucky Cheeses?!”

And the next 15 minutes were spent discussing how anyone could live in a world without chucky cheese. I am going to learn so very much this week!