My Disaster, My Hope (Part 1)

I’m leaving the light-hearted, playful posting for another day. Today is my day to share something very painful with you. This isn’t easy for me to do because I usually like to keep things light-hearted and upbeat. It’s much easier for me to tell people that things are great and I’m super happy and life couldn’t be better. Isn’t that how we all want people to “think” of us? I don’t like to show my stress and my pain. I like to be the positive one who always sees the best in every situation. Well, my friends, this disaster is plaguing my heart and is sucking all positive right out of me. So, I must leave positive behind for this moment to write this post. This is my heart under a microscope.....
Welcome to my disaster. I am utterly devastated with my situation. My desire and my passion is to be a stay at home mom-FULL TIME. My husband is in support of this but we know it is just not financially possible right now. We are working on it, we are trying hard to figure out how and if we can make it work. I am desperate to find a way to make it work. It’s consuming all of my thoughts. I am utterly miserable about it. I usually just pretend I am happy most of the time so not to burden anyone.
It’s not that I don’t like my career. I LOVE being a counselor and I worked hard to earn a Master’s Degree to do that. It’s challenging and I get to make a difference in the lives of children who are in very difficult situations. I really like making a difference…….
And then……..it happened. 8 hours of labor later, 8 lbs of wet, beautiful, brown-haired baby later, I was changed. My desire to be a career-woman was derailed that day. I’m sure that desire will return one day. That is not the case right now. Right now I want to be a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom). I want to do all the things that were popular and cool in the 1950s for a woman to do. (Women libbers-run, run from this blog as fast as you can before you start seizing and throwing up!) I want my credentials to be SAHM. I want to play with my children all day, I want to clean and maintain our home, I want to go for stroller and wagon rides to the park, I want to cook great recipes and have it ready for my husband when he gets home from work. And then…. I want to wash the dishes!!!!!!! I want to plan play dates with other moms because I crave adult interaction. I want to blog about the craziness of being a stay at home mom. I want to get bored with it and then just keep on doing it. I want to be on the MOPs committee. I want to roll my eyes over endless stacks of laundry-well, I already do that...but, you know what I mean. I could go on and on here…..do you get it yet, I REALLY REALLY want to be a full-time stay at home mom. And I can’t…..
The crazy things is, is I work 75% time and get to do a large portion of my work from home. My sweet baby is only in daycare about 15 hours a week max. It really isn’t all that bad and it could be worse. Our daycare lady is superb. I love her and I know Leighton has a ball there. And it is even good for him to play with other kids. I love that for him. But, it still kills me and devastates me. It eats away at my heart and crushes my soul. It is an utter disaster in my heart. I am convinced that this is my purpose right now. I feel like I’m missing out on this wonderful “freeing” experience of being a stay at home mom. I’m sure all the SAHM’s out there are laughing right now because I said “freeing”. I use the term “freeing” very loosely. We all know staying at home is not some cake-walk, easy job. It is not really all that glamorous. Unless you consider smashed green peas in your hair glamorous. Unless you consider finding poop on your elbow three hours after changing a poopy diaper, glamorous. This isn’t sitting by the pool on your veranda sipping margaritas and painting your toenails all day. It’s work and it’s not “free” time. You’re tied down pretty much 24/7 with kids and “wifely” duties. But, let me tell you, I WANT THAT!!! Tie me down, baby, tie me down.
My heart is truly broken over this. It has been bothering me for a long time and I have been wondering whether or not I should share this here. I have just felt like I need it to be out there. Maybe if it is out there, it will be more motivation for us to do what it takes to make it work. Maybe putting it out there for the world to read will be the first step toward making this a reality. Maybe. Until then, it still really hurts and I still just have to deal with that hurt. In closing, I would like to share with you how I deal with my pain. I know that God is bigger than my pain and I KNOW he has a plan that will be the best for us. I don’t know what it is and I don’t know how it will play out. I just know that if we trust HIM, it will. That doesn’t make it hurt any less by any means. But it is a comfort for me……to be continued.