Recently someone tweeted, "People who tie everything they say, do, post to their babies/children are the most boring people in the world, and that is a fact." I started to wonder not only if I was boring but also if I did in fact tend to tie that particular bow in my own world? After some self-reflection and honestly some major back scrolling, my fears were confirmed or at least partially confirmed. I genuinely began questioning my voice in the world, or at least the social-media platform we all are living with. This simple tweet I read turned into an actual conviction. You see, my world does revolve around my children in so many ways. These 3 almost grown up kids bombarded our lives several years ago. They turned everything upside down, twisting our known life into a gigantic pretzel. A few simple words cannot articulate the magnitude of responsibility felt. The overflow of the greatest love, physical exhaustion, happiness, sorrow, worry, joy, annoyance, gratitude, guilt and so many other feelings wrapped up all at once. One moment feeling like you have completely lost yourself to these foreign aliens residing under your roof and the next ready to grab them all up and hide them under a bushel safe from the bullies and hurts of their world, never to return to reality. Part of the life "B.C." (before children) seems to get buried beneath little league baseball games, dance recitals, carpool lanes, assemblies and daily mundane homework problems. And sometimes I catch myself, (and my husband does too) living vicariously through them. But not only with their achievements or successes but also in their tears and broken hearts. I've noticed, parenthood rekindles our childhood constantly, the good, the bad and all of the other stuff in between. And living through this, raising up these pieces of your soul, it is extremely hard to even have a conversation without including an actual physical and emotional part of yourself. Sometimes I feel like a stranger wondering where my pre-kid self has vanished off to...maybe I lost her at the hockey rink, I may have shivered her off underneath the broken heaters at the ICE BOX, boy they aren't kidding about that name! But all joking aside, these 3 kids of mine are a part of me, an enormous part. Trying to untie them from conversations and posts is like cutting out a piece of my heart.
And maybe I'm just extra sensitive because my oldest is getting ready to leave the nest and take off flying on his own in a few weeks. But my precious, irritating, beautiful, sometimes stinky, always loved children are a part of my world now and until the good Lord takes me from this place. So if I'm boring, just scroll down and know I'm still my own person but I have three kids who will continue to be tied into all of my life.
