This Week's Bright Crayon

I was about to get lost in the huge blogosphere when I found this wonderful blog.

Suburban Stereotype.

It was love at first sight type. I was digging around in her archives (cause that's what all the cool stalkers do) and stumbled across one of the most wonderfully written, honest posts! I just had to email her right away (and she is an extremely gracious person who swears I am not a moron - bonus points for her!) and ask her if I could post it over here for all of my readers to see. So with much fanfare, whistling and foot stomping, I bring you this week's bright crayon...

Give me a break...and yourself

Some days I feel like I blew it. Like I failed. At being a mom. At being a wife. At being a friend.

Some days, I yell at my kids (a lot). I snap at Joe (a lot) and I talk way more than I listen to my friends.

It's those days that make me lay awake at night and feel horrible about how mean I was to the kids. Or how unsupportive I was to Joe. Or how I totally screwed up the delicate "give and take" balance of friendship.

It's those nights that I hear that voice in my head telling me I'm no good at this....this thing called marriage or motherhood. This thing called being a Christian. This thing called being a friend. I suck. I whine too much. I cry at the drop of a hat. I stress wwwaaayyy too much. I'm selfish.

I know I should call my parents because it's been a while. I should call that friend who lives far away and see how she is. I should get down on the floor and play with my kids more. I should be on the computer less. I should make an effort to reach out to the ladies at church more...and on and on and on...

It's those moments when I realize that I can't remember the last time I picked up my Bible...or even where my Bible is for that matter.

I wonder why I'm hangin by a thread and why God's voice is so far away...and then I realize it's because I'm far away.

I also realized something else tonight. I'm not alone in feeling this way. So many other women feel this way. Lots of moms. It doesn't matter if you have 20 kids or 1, the pressures are all there. The stress is the same. It's all relative. Just because I have more or less kids than someone else doesn't mean that I feel more or less of the daily stuff that gets us all down.

The key, I think (and who am I really?) is to take off the masks...get real with people. Reach out to others and let others reach out to you. That's hard for me. I don't know if it is for others (although I expect it is since so many of us feel like no one understands what we're going through.)

It seems like we put so much pressure on ourselves to be...something...something more than what we are, more than what we are supposed to be or need to be. Good grief, where does that come from??? Oprah? Dr. Phil? Looking at our neighbor who looks like she has it all together? I bet anything there are times when she sits in her bathroom and cries her eyes out because the weight of the world is too much. I bet we'd be surprised how many times our friend (you know...the one we all have who seems like she's got it all figured out) loses her temper, snaps at her kids, and gives her husband the cold shoulder.

I hope someday soon we can all let it go. Stop holding ourselves up to such unreachable standards and then acting as judge and jury to convict ourselves of the crime we, ourselves created.

Cuz living like that is draining. It's exhausting. It's unhealthy.

Yes, we are women, hear us roar, but more than that...we're human. We make mistakes. So, for Pete's sake...let's go easy on ourselves! If we treated any of our friends the way we treat ourselves, we wouldn't have any friends!