Archive for the ‘Spiritual Thoughts’ Category

In this day and age….to talk about resting is almost akin to laziness.  I have been contemplating this word…..as I have had so much enforced  “down-time” with my current state, with my  fibromyalgia.  I’ve noticed that I feel quite guilty… and even some shame… that I’m spending so much time “resting” while others are  out working so hard.  (or so they say! 

I look back over my career as wife and mother……I started so young.  I got married two weeks after my 20th birthday and got pregnant on our honeymoon.  (Who knew?!?!)  I worked until 2 weeks before our first baby was born.  We lived in a little one-bedroom, adobe, guest-house  when we welcomed our first, tiny baby girl,  and soon afterward (15 1/2 months to be exact) we had our second beautiful daughter.  We chose to use cloth diapers for economy’s sake (OMG…I would NEVER do that now!!) and that meant washing a load every day.  We had no dryer and our land lady allowed us the use of her washer.  So I stood out underneath those clothes lines every day…..rain or shine.  I have so MANY memories of singing, my face turned up to the sunshine, while I hung out the white cotton diapers and all the teeny little frilly clothing of my smaller-than-average baby girls.   We were “poor” in those days, (who wasn’t??) but I have an amazing amount of incredibly sweet memories that were, in a way, the very result of having so little and life being very simple and hence, quite beautiful because of that.   Our son arrived when our oldest daughter had just turned 3, and so we now had three beautiful babies……a full house!

We braved through impetigo and chicken pox and more cloth diapers than I could count.  As you can imagine, there were challenges and joys and everything in between with our young family.  Thankfully, we moved into a 3 bedroom when our youngest was just a newborn.  We went on to homeschool our children, mainly due to Jeff’s rotating shifts and him always working weekends and our desire to have adequate time to spend together as a family.

So as I am endeavoring to reason with myself, (by the way….it is NOT working),  I am reminded of many long years of what seemed like NO REST……like…..EVER……and  logging what felt like YEARS worth of nights spent holding a child as they up-chucked all night.  For some reason I CANNOT FATHOM….they would always begin about an hour after I had gone to sleep, and continue until the sun rose in the morning.  We had our routine of making a “bed” next to Daddy and my bed….so we could rush to the bathroom together.  There were children sleeping on makeshift beds next to ours for years and years.   Sometimes I miss it.  Not, mind you, the up-chucking.  Just those sweet young children, dragging a blanket and pillow to our room and gently tapping me on the shoulder to ask if they could sleep next to me.  I always said yes.  Always!

You would THINK, that after 20+ years of   keeping a home and raising a family…..years of taking care of others…. that I would have also gleaned something along the way, that would aid in learning the art of  SELF-CARE.  Hmmmmmpfh!  I guess not.

So I am on the quest to learn the “Art Of Caring For Myself”.  Learning the quality of LOVING MYSELF.  It is harder than I thought.  But one thing I am observing  is that the more a person does love themselves, the better quality of love they are able to give.  You can’t give away what you don’t have.   I am starting with some words a friend said to me:

You just go easy, honey!

BE

into EXTREME SELF-CARE MODE!

Back off of life!

Tame those aches and pains!

Honor my body”s energy level.

This is

A PASSAGE ABOUT

BECOMING A NEW ME!