I could write about 500 posts relating to this topic and my struggle with doing this, and how much it means to me to be this way, but today I will just write about my struggle to be intentional about living intentionally. Ha, it's not lost on me that I am so bad at this that I have to work hard to be intentional about even trying to be intentional. That is very funny to me.
I, like most Moms of young kids, spend my weeks struggling to get laundry caught up and put away, driving a car full of kids to all sorts of activities, volunteering or doing the occasional Substitute day at the school, and in between all that trying to find time to feed my family well, spend time with my Husband, read with my kids, bathe them, and oh yea, keep this house somewhat sanitary for living. It's exhausting and never ending and with no reward in close site, can be difficult to stomach some days.
So, every couple of months or so, something will happen and I'll just hit a brick wall and have an inner STOP so to speak. This past week was my week for that. It usually happens when something goes wrong and I start to feel like "What's the point of all of this", and then I get really clear about what matters to me, who matters to me, and that spending time doing anything other than those things is not serving anyone and therefore a waste of time in my eyes. I crave being intentional!
In this moment of clarity I usually have good conversations with good friends. The kind of conversations that make one think, "God is totally putting me here right now so that I can hear this and learn from this conversation". I have felt like that all week in my little passing moments with most of the people that I have ironically crossed paths with. Maybe I am just craving direction so badly that I am extra sensitive to it, or maybe this is just how God speaks to me......through others. I'm grateful to be surrounded in my community and daily walk with people who support, love, encourage, challenge, and generally have similar values to me. Gotta love the small town life. I truly do have so many people in my community that I just love and know that I can go to for sound advice or just to laugh with.
The reason for writing this particular blog post is that I am having this love hate relationship with Facebook and I finally think I figured out why. I don't post to fb very often, maybe I'll post a pic or a blurb every couple of days if I think it is something that my family and friends would enjoy hearing or seeing. Other than that, I just spend my down time in bed, at stop lights, or sitting in the carpool line waiting for kids to get out of school scrolling through my feed and noting random information about many people that I care about and many people that I haven't spoken to or thought about in years until their friend request popped up. It seems so harmless but for me it just isn't.
This random and thoughtless scrolling and checking seems to lead to me comparing and wishing and wanting. I find myself questioning my choices, my financial status, my Mothering ability, my body, and the list goes on and on and on. The more I look at the news feed, the more I want to look at the news feed. This is genius for Mark Zuckerberg, but bad for my Psyche. So, I recognize this and I occasionally deactivate my account. It makes me feel better for a week or so, like I'm taking a stand, and then I start to want back on. Not because I want to know what's up with everyone, but because I feel like I am missing out on communication about my family, pictures of my Nieces and Nephews, supporting my friends in business ventures, etc etc. It really is for noble reasons, but then the choice to get back on comes with all of that other stuff. Bleh!
So, in conclusion, I've decided the solution to this is to stay on fb, but to also get more intentional about this blog. Its the one way that I feel I can talk about the daily life of our family and document it to print a book for the kids or whatever I deem, without all the other junk. I love writing these memories for my kids to read someday and that means a lot to me. I want to try really hard this year to be intentional about blogging about our life and having that keepsake. I've let this go for the past two years and I'm unhappy with myself about it. So, I want to be intentional about doing better. I think fb has become a way to throw these little fun things out there and smile on what people have to say or think of them, but I don't share these little things about our life for that reason. I do love keeping in touch with people and bragging on my kids to mass quantities of people, but the real reason I share my life in print is to preserve the memories being made. Blogging is, for me, the best way to do this.
So, I'm gonna try to make this a several times a week thing. I vow to try and be intentional about that. Let's get this party started.........
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