keeping it real

I wrote the following post several months ago, but for whatever reason, I never published it.  Too personal?  Too vague?  Too soap-boxy?  I don't know.  But I also didn't delete it, so I know it meant something to me when I wrote it.  Today, I saw this:  "my life is so perfect on the outside."  It was a phrase someone had searched that led them to my blog.  Reading that string of words made me remember this post, and I think I'm ready to publish it now.


Please allow me this moment to purge what's on my mind while thoroughly overusing the word "crud."

The hubby and I went on a hot date Saturday night. We went to Walmart to get diapers and batteries, then ate York peppermint patties on the way to Home Depot. We looked at outdoor light fixtures. I stared blankly at the display wall, incapable of choosing which ones I want on our front porch, incapable of having an opinion, incapable of even caring that I didn't have an opinion. I was close to tears. Over light fixtures. Lame. I'm sure I speak for Ryan as well when I say that our mental and emotional resources have been drained. We are running on empty, miles past empty, fumes. We returned to our girls an hour after we left. Our hot date was over.

There is beauty in the world, I will not deny it. I know it's there, I take pictures of it almost daily. But sometimes, the beauty is hard to see through all the crud on the windshield. And right now, it feels like we have quite a bit of crud.

The thing about the crud is, no one else can see your crud. They look through their own crud at the beauty in your world, and they think, "Now those people have it good." They might see a new house being built, two beautiful girls, the pretty images I share with the world. They don't see the crud - the sacrifices we make daily, the time spent apart (way too much), the heartache we feel from giving up our time together now in exchange for a better "someday," and all the stress that comes from building a house, raising a family, and just plain dealing with life.

I don't share a lot of the crud in our lives. I feel like it makes me sound shallow and ungrateful. I like to keep this blog a place of beauty and inspiration, relatively "crud-free" so to speak. If you look at this blog and only see beauty, please know that that is my intention. But I also want this blog to be real, and let's face it, real life is hard. There is crud everywhere.

Part of the reason I post the pretty pictures is to force myself to see the beauty that surrounds us. Years from now, the beautiful parts are what I will remember anyway. Our minds are powerful protectors of our hearts, softening the pain of our pasts, dimming sharp memories of hurt and sadness. I know I will look back and think, "It wasn't so bad," because that is something you can say after you've made it to the other side.

Like most difficult times in life, this too shall pass. I know this. And if there is anything I've learned in the past few months, it is that we are tough and can get through anything. But right now, it is hard. The crud is thick.

Some days I catch myself envying the beautiful lives of others. Then I remember that they have crud too, I just can't see it.

When I am feeling strong, I see the crud as just part of the adventure. I see each day as my children do: a time to live. But more often, I find myself putting off living my life until our circumstances are "better." I don't want to, but I do. It is a difficult thing to live for today, in the moment, with the abandon that young, innocent children do.

I've gotten a bit sidetracked from my original intentions, if I had any clear intentions to begin with. Of that, I am not certain. But I am certain that writing about the crud in our life (even in intentionally vague terms) helps relieve some of the stress I'm feeling and helps put things in perspective. I just want to be honest, even if that means showing weakness, or appearing shallow and ungrateful. And maybe, somewhere, someone will read this, and she will feel better about her own struggle with seeing through the crud because she'll know she is not alone.