I'm exhausted, and my husband and I are fighting, and the house is a mess, and I have acne, and my hair hasn't been done in 6 months, and this is my life, and I love it.
Before I got married I was a party girl. In fact, I was on a mission to party as much as I could as often as I could. I barely took care of myself, and barely had any responsibilities. Fast-forward to today and I'm married with two kids under the age of three, and sometimes it feels like I'm still living the same life, except I wake up at 5 am instead of going to bed at 5 am, I drink way too much coffee rather than cocktails, and I find myself dancing to kids' music instead of club music. But there's very little sleep, a good amount of puke, and a lot of nights that I hit the pillow without washing off my makeup... or brushing my teeth. I went from no responsibilities to a plethora of responsibilities, and my life is still not together.
Recently, my husband and I have been at each other (and not in the good way) more than often, and it seems like even when we are enjoying each other's company, we are so tired that we can't even get through the first half of a movie without falling asleep - another similarity to my past party lifestyle - passing out. We see each other in the house between diaper changes and we give each other the "I'm exhausted" look far too often. It's like we're frat parents of a fraternity that only has two members, but they're actually girls - ages 2 and 13 months - and they don't ever leave to go to class.
I am a stay-at-home mom and my hubby works long hours at his job, and we are both first-born, driven perfectionists that tend to lean toward wanting to control our environments 100% of the time. Oh how we clash with parenthood at times... I feel as though I never stop cleaning, feeding, changing, wiping, scolding, cooking, dressing, and scolding again, and changing and wiping and cleaning again. Just when it seems like I got it together or figured something out (like potty training), it all falls apart and pokes me in my forehead with an indignant, "Nope!" And I'm back to it. Then, just when I think I might implode, my darling husband walks in the door, equally as worn out from his day, and it's DINNERTIME. We are all lucky if I have had enough fore-thought to prepare something, and we're even luckier we have an oven that I can throw a frozen pizza into when I haven't. Everybody is hungry and mildly cranky, and hubby and I have our brave faces on. We just have to make it to bedtime. When I was a party girl, I just had to... uh... buy beer?
But it's not all bad. Among all the "ings" there's also a good bit of laughing, playing, smiling, hugging, praising, clapping, jumping, reading, a little bit of crying, and a lot of praying. One huge difference between my life now and when I was partying is that I have a goal now. A purpose. I have given my life to the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. I have submitted to the God who gave His only son that I (and everyone else) might have eternal life. I am destined for Heaven. The only reason that any of this works and I didn't give up long ago, is God. He is the reason I press forward. He is the love I need when I have none left. He is the strength I have when I could collapse. He is the reason I have to repent every day of my sin and the reason I am here today. Without Him I could do nothing.
What a beautiful mess we are. I am. My marriage is. Nothing is perfect except for God. My hair has such bad roots, that someone complimented me on my "ombre" the other day. I'm about to turn 30, and I still have acne. I sometimes worry that someone is going to stop by and actually want to come in my house, and then leave thinking I'm a hoarder because of all the clutter. But we are so blessed. We have each other and we have our faith in God. He has given us something so special and wonderful, and we had to do nothing for it. It's hard work to keep up with this life and it's entirely worth it. And hey, I'm still the life of the party - I just have a reason to celebrate now.
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