Well, believe it.
For years, I’ve struggled with feeling undervalued. Very few people I interact with regularly knew me before my days consisted mostly of wiping behinds and watching Blue’s Clues. So, I try not to hold a grudge when someone dismisses my opinion, or, even worse, doesn’t even care to ask for my opinion on some sort of an intellectual issue. After all, I am not very well-spoken (never have been), I tend to make jokes (A LOT) and, chances are, if you engage me in conversation for any length of time, I’ll end up mentioning diapers or lipgloss before it’s over. The thing is that I know I’m smart. And I know I have intelligent thoughts on things other than Lego blocks and Glee. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve left church or dinner with friends and said to my husband “______ thinks I’m shallow.” But I knew I wasn’t.
Or was I?
3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
18“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. (Matthew 13: 3-6, 18-21, NIV)
I, my friends, am that shallow, rocky soil. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself because I have these two kids that consume me in every way imaginable. And, while I have been thankful for them everyday, I have been mired in my own inadequacies and have become too shallow for anything fruitful to take root in me. I have lost focus. It’s not unusual. It’s expected, actually. You have kids, they become the center of your world. You lose yourself a little, then you get in a rhthym and it all comes back together. You are no longer the you you were before marriage and kids, you are an enhanced you. A better you. What no one told me (or I was too busy wrapped up in how hard this whole wife/mom thing is to really hear) is that the rythym doesn’t come on its own. You have to go get it. You have to fight tooth and nail until you claim it as your own. You have to earn it.
It’s not for the lazy. It’s not for the navel-gazer. It’s not for the shallow. It’s not for the martyr. It’s for the determined.
I am determined.
So, if you think you’ve sensed a different tone around the blog, you have. I am pretty sure I’ll still feel compelled to go on and on about lotion or inundate you with Christmas picture outtakes. It’s just that this blog is a tiny window into my heart. And my heart’s changing a little. I’m digging a little deeper.
Tilling the soil, if you will.
Mint is one of my most favorite scents. I may be just a little obsessed with it. Aveda makes my most favorite mint-scented body products, but in recent years I’ve become what some refer to as [VERY] price-sensitive and I don’t fork over double digits for soap. You can imagine I was so very stoked to see in 