This post is not for children. Especially not my children. So Child 2, stop reading right now because I know you didn't listen to the first part. That goes for you, too, Child 3. I mean it. Turn off the computer right now! I'm going to talk about mushy love stuff.
See what you did? You made me lie to my children.You may have noticed that I didn't include Child 1 in my instructions, but that is only because she never listens to me anyway and also she doesn't think she is a child. So Child 1, read ahead at your own peril and we can talk about this tomorrow when you come home.
I'm not really going to talk about mushy love stuff, but I really don't want my children reading the rest of this post (although I know you all still are anyway) because this post is going to talk about the elephant in the room. I know that you are thinking that I'm not a very serious person. This is only true most of the time. Some of the time, I am deadly serious. I am only frivolous and silly on the surface. Husband once accused me of not being very introspective. I'm still upset about this comment because it is completely untrue. I know it's untrue because I'm a worrier. I worry about everything--whether I locked the door when I left, if I'll remember to get gas on the way home, how the children will do in school this year, if The Dog is going to bite someone and I'll be blamed for it. Because everything is always my fault, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can be more perfect so that bad things won't happen and it won't be my fault.
The problem is that bad things are happening and they aren't my fault and I can't do anything about them and I've discovered that it is awful worrying about things you can do nothing at all about. So I've decided to employ another stress management technique which I'm very fond of--The Scarlett O'Hara method of stress reduction which is basically to think about everything later. I can hear you scoffing at this method and mocking me for pretty much acting like an ostrich. But the joke's on you because this method works. Scarlett gets a lot of grief, but she had a rough life and she did everything she could to make sure that she and her family survived. She lost husband after husband and what is not shown in the movie is that she had a child by each of them and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure they didn't starve. She would pick herself up and get to work about the business of survival and think about the hard things later, all while managing to wear the most beautiful clothes. I don't know if she had a thing for purses, but that red dress she wore to Melanie's birthday party was amazing.
So I idolize Scarlett and I really need to channel her today because I know for certain that there is someone very much like me out there and she is having a much, much worse day than me. It is probably the worst day of her life so far and it probably won't be better for a long time. I can only imagine how awful it is to lose your husband and be left with putting the pieces of your family back together. But I can imagine it, and I do so frighteningly often. Here she was just like me, perhaps writing in a blog about how difficult the children are and how she doesn't like her dog and how much she misses her husband and then, she gets the news that her life will be just like that forever and she will miss her husband for the rest of her life because he is gone. Someone took him away from her and there is nothing she can do to get him back. I think about this and I think about how grateful I am that it was not my husband, and then I think how small minded it would seem to her if she knew that I thought that. So there you are. She is facing the worst, and she is probably much better at it than me. I'll think about that tomorrow while I'm shopping for a red dress, or maybe another purse.
See what you did? You made me lie to my children.You may have noticed that I didn't include Child 1 in my instructions, but that is only because she never listens to me anyway and also she doesn't think she is a child. So Child 1, read ahead at your own peril and we can talk about this tomorrow when you come home.
I'm not really going to talk about mushy love stuff, but I really don't want my children reading the rest of this post (although I know you all still are anyway) because this post is going to talk about the elephant in the room. I know that you are thinking that I'm not a very serious person. This is only true most of the time. Some of the time, I am deadly serious. I am only frivolous and silly on the surface. Husband once accused me of not being very introspective. I'm still upset about this comment because it is completely untrue. I know it's untrue because I'm a worrier. I worry about everything--whether I locked the door when I left, if I'll remember to get gas on the way home, how the children will do in school this year, if The Dog is going to bite someone and I'll be blamed for it. Because everything is always my fault, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can be more perfect so that bad things won't happen and it won't be my fault.
The problem is that bad things are happening and they aren't my fault and I can't do anything about them and I've discovered that it is awful worrying about things you can do nothing at all about. So I've decided to employ another stress management technique which I'm very fond of--The Scarlett O'Hara method of stress reduction which is basically to think about everything later. I can hear you scoffing at this method and mocking me for pretty much acting like an ostrich. But the joke's on you because this method works. Scarlett gets a lot of grief, but she had a rough life and she did everything she could to make sure that she and her family survived. She lost husband after husband and what is not shown in the movie is that she had a child by each of them and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure they didn't starve. She would pick herself up and get to work about the business of survival and think about the hard things later, all while managing to wear the most beautiful clothes. I don't know if she had a thing for purses, but that red dress she wore to Melanie's birthday party was amazing.
So I idolize Scarlett and I really need to channel her today because I know for certain that there is someone very much like me out there and she is having a much, much worse day than me. It is probably the worst day of her life so far and it probably won't be better for a long time. I can only imagine how awful it is to lose your husband and be left with putting the pieces of your family back together. But I can imagine it, and I do so frighteningly often. Here she was just like me, perhaps writing in a blog about how difficult the children are and how she doesn't like her dog and how much she misses her husband and then, she gets the news that her life will be just like that forever and she will miss her husband for the rest of her life because he is gone. Someone took him away from her and there is nothing she can do to get him back. I think about this and I think about how grateful I am that it was not my husband, and then I think how small minded it would seem to her if she knew that I thought that. So there you are. She is facing the worst, and she is probably much better at it than me. I'll think about that tomorrow while I'm shopping for a red dress, or maybe another purse.
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