As much as I will admit that I can be a selfish person, I also have spent too much of my time trying to make others happy and worrying about them rather than my own needs. One of the things I've found is not only does doing what makes you happy make others angry with you, but sometimes just being happy seems to angry people.
I'm not going to go on about negative people today though. Instead I'm going to be selfish or self absorbed and talk about myself. Sunday night I wrote my husband a long personal email to hopefully inspire him with a positive look towards not only the year ahead, but a reminder to be happy in the now. He had other plans that didn't work out for this school year so he's going into this new year feeling a little jaded. However, I'm a firm believer in what's meant to be will be, and there's a reason it all worked out this way. I don't know why right now, but sometimes we see why later.
I am a planner. As any planner knows we like to look ahead and plan. That's great and all, but I kept finding myself looking ahead, trying to analyze where my stress level would go away, where it wouldn't seem like there were so many problems, needs, and wants for me to satisfy, but as I explained to my husband in his letter life is never stress or problem free. So there's no point in waiting for that moment because while we're looking ahead for that less stressful moment we're missing so much that's important right now.
A couple months ago I also mentioned how I was torn on whether to stay where we're at here in Maryland eighteen hours from my family or to start working towards moving closer, possibly all the way back home. I hit a low point sometime after we moved into our new house. We had just bought this house that one I was worried how we'd afford, two that we could see as our permanent home for our children, and three how these two things together represented the reality of the distance between my childhood home and the home I was creating for my children. I questioned our decisions, I questioned what I wanted, I questioned my purpose with so many things.
This is where it's amazing how things come full circle. I wrote also several times about being mad at myself because I wasn't happy. My family would bug me about moving closer, my husband would bug me about wanting this or that next. Then there was the tug of war between the girls and work. I felt I needed more time with my girls even though they never said so much but mommy guilt is sometimes very irrational, and I felt like I stretched myself too thin with work responsibilities and never gave it the time it deserved. I wanted to make everyone happy, but along the way I lost my own happy. I was so worried about what everyone else wanted or what I thought they needed that I lost sight of what happy was.
As I reminded him our glass is 3/4 full with the other 1/4 the great things to come. They'll come in their own time. I'm sorry, but I'm then I'm not, if what I choose isn't what you want me to do. I've always done what I wanted regardless anyway, but I guess the part that I've come to realize is that if someone isn't happy with my choices that's not my problem.
Many choices in life come with sacrifices. I realize that, and I accept that. Nate and I have both always had to work for everything we have, and we built a life here that makes me and us happy. I'm ten years into a career I enjoy, and every year I think I get a little better at balancing motherhood with work and my own personal wants and needs. I'm almost thirty three years old, been married for over seven years, will be with my husband for eleven years in couple of months, and we've done so much in those almost eleven years. We have these two beautiful girls that are not only happy but adventurous and fearless. I realize it's not just a good life but a great life. Life will never be easy; again I don't expect it to be, but happy is where I choose to be.
I'm not going to go on about negative people today though. Instead I'm going to be selfish or self absorbed and talk about myself. Sunday night I wrote my husband a long personal email to hopefully inspire him with a positive look towards not only the year ahead, but a reminder to be happy in the now. He had other plans that didn't work out for this school year so he's going into this new year feeling a little jaded. However, I'm a firm believer in what's meant to be will be, and there's a reason it all worked out this way. I don't know why right now, but sometimes we see why later.
I am a planner. As any planner knows we like to look ahead and plan. That's great and all, but I kept finding myself looking ahead, trying to analyze where my stress level would go away, where it wouldn't seem like there were so many problems, needs, and wants for me to satisfy, but as I explained to my husband in his letter life is never stress or problem free. So there's no point in waiting for that moment because while we're looking ahead for that less stressful moment we're missing so much that's important right now.
A couple months ago I also mentioned how I was torn on whether to stay where we're at here in Maryland eighteen hours from my family or to start working towards moving closer, possibly all the way back home. I hit a low point sometime after we moved into our new house. We had just bought this house that one I was worried how we'd afford, two that we could see as our permanent home for our children, and three how these two things together represented the reality of the distance between my childhood home and the home I was creating for my children. I questioned our decisions, I questioned what I wanted, I questioned my purpose with so many things.
This is where it's amazing how things come full circle. I wrote also several times about being mad at myself because I wasn't happy. My family would bug me about moving closer, my husband would bug me about wanting this or that next. Then there was the tug of war between the girls and work. I felt I needed more time with my girls even though they never said so much but mommy guilt is sometimes very irrational, and I felt like I stretched myself too thin with work responsibilities and never gave it the time it deserved. I wanted to make everyone happy, but along the way I lost my own happy. I was so worried about what everyone else wanted or what I thought they needed that I lost sight of what happy was.
As I reminded him our glass is 3/4 full with the other 1/4 the great things to come. They'll come in their own time. I'm sorry, but I'm then I'm not, if what I choose isn't what you want me to do. I've always done what I wanted regardless anyway, but I guess the part that I've come to realize is that if someone isn't happy with my choices that's not my problem.
Many choices in life come with sacrifices. I realize that, and I accept that. Nate and I have both always had to work for everything we have, and we built a life here that makes me and us happy. I'm ten years into a career I enjoy, and every year I think I get a little better at balancing motherhood with work and my own personal wants and needs. I'm almost thirty three years old, been married for over seven years, will be with my husband for eleven years in couple of months, and we've done so much in those almost eleven years. We have these two beautiful girls that are not only happy but adventurous and fearless. I realize it's not just a good life but a great life. Life will never be easy; again I don't expect it to be, but happy is where I choose to be.
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