Telling stories

"There is healing in telling stories.... There is healing in hearing stories."
I just read that in the Forward to Kitchen Table Wisdom. I think it was my first reading of that book and another book that first started me on the idea to start this blogg. I was hopping to help in the healing of others.... but maybe it is my own healing that this is all for.

I wanted to tell a story today.
But maybe that will have to wait, for now as I sit none come ready to be shared. So instead I will share some thoughts I had while reading various sections of the above mentioned book. Rachel talks of finding our own "wholeness" and how each persons "wholeness" is different but suited to the individual. Many have "fixed" themselves trying to fit another's wholeness to themselve. But being "fixed" is never as strong as the original whole. We each need our own wholeness.

So I started wondering about myself. In what ways have I tried to "fix" myself? Have I lost my sense of "wholeness"?

I feel pretty grounded in my faith and my knowledge of my relationship with God as my Heavenly Father. He has a plan for me. My important life decisions are all made from this premise. It is my source of strength and energy as well as my motivation.

I lose my wholeness in the day to day finding peace and happiness. How and why? Is it related to this fixed vs. wholeness? I think so.

I have tried to "fix" myself with images and stories of over-the-top heroines acieving goals sooner, better, and incredible. The heroines I imagined in my novels were the kindest, smartest and most talented. They were true to their faith or convictions while diligently working, excelling in school (finishing early), college, other talents and loving life while successfully overcoming obsticles. They inspired all who they interacted with.
My ideal mother is the one who can balance life, keep her kids and herself happy enjoying the day to day adventures, never losing patience.... and maybe not having a perfect house, but a house where everyone feels comfortable coming.
The ideal friend keeps up correspondence.
The ideal church servant is on top of all callings as well as family and personal spirituality.....
I no longer create novels of these super individuals. I don't have all the time to work out the details (I could work out the stories in my mind for weeks at a time laying in bed, walking somewhere, doing chores...). But they are there with their perfectness calling to me!

And yet at the same time I have feared hard things. As a youth I didn't really want to grow up. Life was already hard. (Mentioning this to my mother in my late teens early twenties, she told me that even as a little girl I would tell her, "I don't want to grow up, its too hard.") I often heard adults advise?!! us struggling teenagers saying, "you think it is hard now... it gets harder." That definitely didn't help me want to grow up. I kept going because I didn't want to stay where I was and I had faith that somehow I should trust God in His plan for me.

I have far more interests than time to pursue and pleanty of guilty feelings for wanting to do what I want than what I feel I should. I am sure I dig my own grave in the juxtaposition of these perfectionist dreams and also my own natural tendancy to relish and focus on the moment, or to actually implement the creation which my mind already induced.

People have always been more important to me and so even if I was trying to go to bed to get the sleep I knew I needed, I would stay up when I sibling came into my room late to talk. Even when I wanted to be the super student I couldn't shut out life to study. The semester I most successfully applied this was the most miserable and depressing! I need connection outside the walls of a building and with people.

I successfully finished college, but was so exhausted from it that I dread deadlines and pressure and have no desire to return to that lifestyle. Before I married, I used to think if I didn't get the chance to marry I would push through for a doctorate and go back and teach at my University. (I love teaching and was passionate about my major.) I soon realized it wasn't just a matter of getting the doctorate required to teach in that department at that University but I also would need to accumulate vast amounts of experience to teach that specialty. I loved teaching the basics as a TA, but found university schedules and rigors overwhelming. How did one have time to do the research and get the experience in the major/field of choice while maintaining grades to have a scholarship and stay in school? Well the research experience slid. Then ill health and struggling efforts to balance life further added to a slide from my sense of performance. I married before my last year thinking I should finish well, but found illness and pregnancy slowing me and lowering what I could expect.

I ended with a degree and a total lack of confidence in my ability to suceed in the profession I had dreamed of. That is ok as long as I don't advertise what I studied and never need it as a career. I am a mom. It is my first priority and first goal. The other was back up and if... but I still feel like a failure. Now as I struggle knowing how to be a good mom, the feelings of not measuring up there seem to haunt me. I have dreams of end of semester deadlined looming the next week and no way of finishing in time. Wondering if I will be able to work something out, how I can delay graduation, how to take a class again etc.

Waking up, instead of the looming semester deadline, it is the never ending dishes, meals, laundry, garbage.... And I find my oldest echoing the desire to not grow up. He has said he doesn't want to marry cause its too hard to keep your kids happy all the time. What am I doing to him?

It all seems overwhelming. My fixed image of the supermom is beyond my capabilities. Where is my wholeness? My thought today was that my wholeness isn't in all these perfect or grand accomplishments. It obviously isn't me. My wholeness is in love. My capacity to love. I shared that thought with my husband. He added faith and commitment to Christ. I can be whole and happy in my love which stems from my love for my older brother Jesus Christ and my faith in God's plan. This love is what rings true when I live life. I love to create things... Most of what I create is given away to others. Now that I have my family it stays more with in my home's walls, but my family is the recipients. When I think of others and doing something for them I think of how I can show them love. When I focus on my love for my family I am happy even with lots of unfinished tasks. When I work with plants and gardening I feel God's love so strongly and feel rejuvination and peace. When I focus on the love of Christ and making it part of me and radiating it to others I find peace and rejuvination even in a hectic Sunday schedule!

I want to return to that wholeness and whatever other wholeness is really me. Let go of the dreams of supermom, super career women, etc. but help others feel the Love that is in me and hopefully help them turn to the pure source of love. Christ.