This is not that.

So I've been wanting to write this post for several days now but my brain tends to store my brilliant ideas away where I can't seem to find them again. Manny and I were having a great conversation in the car the other day. It seems like a lot of our great conversations take place in the car, maybe it's because all of the children are restrained contained in their seat belts and it's like we're on our own little date in the "front seat". What was I talking about again? Oh yes, so, the motion of the car had begun some movement in my otherwise typically slightly mushy gourd. I love to try and figure out why people must be the way they are, you know, like, they probably had these types of parents or childhood experiences that made them the people they are today and my mind goes for a long ride into all the details about one of the many possibilities of what must have happened to "that person" to make them "that way". Why do I spend minutes, hours even deriving these fictional but probable stories in my mind? I don't really know. (wow it's like I'm having a conversation with myself now, I should do this more often). So I'm going to rewind to a few days earlier before our conversation in the car. It was a typical morning in our house. I'm trying to shush the kids because Johanna's sleeping upstairs. Manny is working on sending out some resumes downstairs. Since my children don't understand the concept of, let's be quiet because your baby sister's sleeping, we headed down to join Manny so the kids could be as loud as they want, besides, that way I could do some laundry. (Did I mention I love commas,)All was well, Johanna was sleeping, Abby and Molly were playing, Manny was working at the computer down by us and I was in my happy place sorting laundry. When suddenly, what do I hear? Bam Bam Bam...Bam Bam Bam coming from upstairs. What on earth could that be? Manny isn't sitting in his computer chair, he must have gone upstairs, he comes down a couple minutes later and I ask, "What was that really loud banging sound Manny?" His reply is, "Nothing, what are you talking about, there was no banging sound." "Yes Manny, there was definitely a really loud bam bam bam," I said getting more heated. "Oh...that, oh, I was just emptying a bowl in the garbage," he said matter of factly. Manny, well meaning as he is, doesn't always get my seriousness and then decided to bang on the desk he was sitting at a few times, you know, as a joke to lighten things up a little. That went over really well with me (insert sarcasm here). I will cut the conversation off at that point and just say I said something along the lines of. Johanna's sleeping! This is the only time I get a break, when she is sleeping...there is no vacation, no night away, for almost 11 months now, every single day, healthy or sick, I can't leave her for more than a couple hours (she doesn't take a bottle). There were a few choice words in there somewhere too, probably some of the meanest I've used in the last 6 years of our marriage (I won't count the first year, since that was our most wonderful worst year ever in which many many choice words were said.) And so, Manny apologized and I continued my fuming while he had to get ready for work. He left for work, I didn't say goodbye and I didn't feel bad at all about what I had said....yet. It took only about 10 minutes before I felt like the worst wife on the earth and I soon worked up enough courage to call him on my his cell phone and apologize. He didn't answer so I left a short message. I didn't hear from him until the day had gone by and he called me on his way home. I had the whole day to think about why I had got so angry, yes I felt disrespected, yes I felt like I hadn't been taken seriously but why did I get so stinking angry? Eventually I figured some of it out (my complexities are too difficult for even myself to figure them completely out). I had been simmering something on the back burner of my mind for awhile, I had been thinking about Manny getting a job in this economy and the likelihood that he could have to accept a job making far less than we need to pay our bills and that I could very well need to return to the workforce and leave my beautiful girls at home. (Yes, I am well aware that many many people have it worse than me but I am me and this is my life.) Eventually we talked about what had been really eating at me and although it wasn't resolved, it felt good to let someone in on my troubles. Somtimes I come across people and can't help but react defensively wondering what I did to make them react so angrily, or why is that person always so depressed, rude, seemingly ungrateful, careless.....and then I think about it.......This is not that. People don't just wake up one day a bitter, hurt, sad, man, woman, or child. They store things away in their little jars of happy, dissapointing, joyful, devastating times. They file away the documents that clearly show the times when God revealed himself to them and the nights they felt he had surely abandoned them. They carefully compile their documentation and pour out their jars and come to a conclusion. Getting back to the front seat, remember? Little girls singing spongebob songs at a deafening pitch, Johanna gurgling along with her big sisters, Manny and I were on our "front seat" date, or did I completely lose you? In all seriousness, Manny and I had a nice conversation that day recalling some events where we encountered people who were seemingly angry at us or God for no forseeable reason but what we truly found was we need to see things for what they are or aren't....maybe this isn't really about that.

Is anybody out there?

Decided to make a blog so I can attempt to reveal my very mysterious self with you, that is, if there is a you. So, why not start a blog on a really light deep note. I think one of the largest struggles I make (along with many others I would imagine) is to try and change the whole world. Yesterday, on a lovely drive towards St. Paul to the Grand Old Day, we passed a billboard. What? A billboard, no way you say, yes a billboard, really exciting huh? ok ok so for real, we passed a billboard with one of those digital counters on it that keeps track of the current jackpot if you play the lottery. It said something that made me think for a while, it said something like, 46 billion ways to thank your parents. In case you aren't catching on right away, it's a little marketing tug at your heart to play the lottery and if you win which you totally could never will you could buy your parents a new house, car, etc. etc. as an expression of gratitude for all of the $&#@ you put them through during your younger years (I'm sure you were a blessing too in there somewhere). Naturally, my mind started to drift and dream of all of the things I would do with the money if I should win it, pay off everyone's mortgage that I can think of, give lots of money to pregnancy crisis centers, get a minivan (3 carseats in the back of a sedan is a little tight) and on and on I dreamed. But my thoughts were soon enough brought back to reality, one where I don't actually win the lottery and my husband is still looking for a full time job and we hope we don't foreclose on our house. God reminded me that he could definitely give me lots of money and I could do all those things that would be wonderful but instead he will allow me to realize how important small gestures of love are and how they are just as big to him. I thought about how if my daughters (when they're a little older) could clean the whole house for me, how wonderful that would be! How equally wonderful, however, it would be if one of my wee girls said to her sister, "You can have this dolly I'm playing with because I know you really like it." I love when my girls make the choice to be kind in just small ways. I will strive to remember what a wise woman once said.
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." ~Mother Theresa

So if anybody's out there, your small gestures will save the world.