It’s well after midnight and I should be sleeping. Truly I should be exhausted, but the cheater Mnt. Dew I had at 10pm is hiding the exhaustion from me right now. And as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep and beat Kim at Bejeweled Blitz on my iPhone I kept thinking about Chris.
So before my eyes do finally close for the night I wanted to get these thoughts out. Even though I’m not supposed to blog about him.
This summer has been a huge wake up call for me. In about two and a half weeks Bailey will be starting full day Kindergarten and I am already wishing I had slowed down to enjoy her babyhood more. And as the school year gets more and more dangerously close each day I am reminded to slow down to soak it all in. Except that recently I started working for my parent’s company and the 20-30 hours I’m there now plus the Fresh Art work we have is keeping me from being able to slow down much.
Which is just making me savor the time I do have that much more.
And it’s making me dream of a simpler life. With land to grow our children on and a house to call our own. Dinners outside and lazy mornings spent in jammies. I feel fall coming and I’m getting nostalgic about summer.
So as I was laying in bed thinking up ways to slow down and enjoy the last days of summer around here my mind kept coming back to Chris.
Chris has shown me incredible grace this summer. He has taken my hectic work schedule in stride. Rarely complaining that he’s with the kids so much, picking up chores I let slide and making time for just the two of us, encouraging me to slow down and enjoy US too.
And the more I think about grace the more I realize I don’t deserve it. During the school year when he is gone all the time I get crabby. I wish I could be out doing what I love all day instead of changing diapers and getting more juice. I become resentful he’s gone so often and start arguments I don’t even agree with.
Truly, I show him no grace at all.
And yet this summer, despite how I treated him during the school year, he has shown me grace. Beautiful and healing grace. And I’m realizing that has definitely been my biggest lesson this summer. Even though I learned a lot of other amazing things this summer also, grace is by far the most important.
This summer has taught me that an organized house makes keeping up with it easier and keeps me more calm. It’s taught me that I am sentimental and hold on to a lot but am also a true lover of purging. It’s taught me that my children all need me differently and that because Grayson can easily play ball all day long doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be doing “learning” activities with him also. It’s reminded me that my kid’s first friends should be siblings. And they are. It’s taught me to be easier on myself because I’m working as hard as I can. It’s reminded me that bills are important to pay but sometimes life happens and you have to let them get a month behind. It’s taught me to ease up on Chris and accept his chaotic schedule. It’s reminded me that I love to play with my husband. It’s taught me a new way to keep track of our life and reminded me how much I love to decorate. It’s taught me how important it is to lean on family when you need them and reminded me that they will always be there when you fall. This summer has taught me that time really does fly by, especially once you become a parent, and to savor the tiny details (and to write them down in some form so that in 30 years I’ll have oodles of writings to remind me of simpler days). It’s taught me that my one and only great love is this life. My family. My children. It’s renewed a great love with my husband whom I’ve loved for 13 years.
And it’s taught me grace.
A lesson I hope to never forget.
