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If only it were as simple as a new pair of glasses to clear up my vision, because lately my view has been pretty hazy.  I’m steeped in the life I’ve chosen, being a mama to 4, a wife to Mr. Darcy, a homeschool teacher, walking with my Dad in his later years. But I haven’t been taking a very good look, instead I’m moving through a grainy, layered tunnel of responsibilities.

To get more to the point, this kind of eyesight(heart-sight) makes me whine. All that is amazing and breathtaking about my life seems hidden in a blind spot. If only I could switch out a lens or take some heavy duty cleaner and start wiping just like this computer screen needs a good scrub.

This week, in small doses, I’ve had moments of clarity.

From the floor, with Sparkles straddling my back, the clutter of the house and din of other siblings squabbling faded and left joy up close.  I should see the view from the carpet more often.

At the restaurant table after a long wait, some crying, the noise my family made above the romantic notions of the couples around us, I snuggled against the warm fall sweaters of my daughters, pulled them in tight, and played the bank robber to my daughter’s police officer with her new Playmobiles.  I should see the view from the kids side of the table more often.

As my newly 8 year old daughter and I ran away and ate, played, explored, and smiled at each other just because, I remembered there’s a different kind of parenting than one of correcting.  There is enjoying and I should  grab the chance to walk beside just one of my children and see into their own, unique world more often.

Today, as most of my tasks still lay ahead of me, I’m sitting in the beginning of autumn with a view of the first tree in our neighborhood to change colors.  In the stillness(my heart is peaceful, the wind is blowing), I’m creating, I’m resting, my glasses are wiped clear.

For a few moments.

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The day I turned 33 something unexpected occurred, a jolt to my brain, a separating of myself into two (of me), so I’ve taken to talking to myself.  My 33 year old self and that younger, doe-eyed girl of 21 with an engagement ring on her finger and a diploma clasped in her hand.

In my mind we sit down for a cup of coffee.

21 year old me: How’s married life? (she says, with an other world smile  and a hand on her ring)

33 year old me, being honest: The first five years were God reshaping me with a rolling pin.

21 year old me, her smile falters slightly: But-

33 year old me: Two people with different histories, learning to live un-selfishly together- I groan.

21 year old me, to herself: But it’s Mr. Darcy, and we’re in love (even sitting here seems to remind her that she’s not with him, it’s like her skin itches with longing) I miss him right now.

33 year old me, continuing on: And you’ll be in love even more in 12 years-hoping to comfort. Of course when things do get easier, there’s Dad…

21 year old me: Dad? But he’s doing great, he’s so supportive and understanding.  Finally, after all these years.

33 year old me, sighs: That’s gonna change.  Everything changes around the time your 3rd child is born and you become responsible for him.

21 year old me, forgetting about our father, she jerks forward: Did you say third child? (she’s tipped over her coffee but neither of me notice)

33 year old me, sifting through the past: Our second had a difficult time in the beginning, several surgeries. She’s doing amazing now though.  Our fourth was born last year, (smiles widely) she’s fantastic. Just yesterday she-

21 year old me, standing, heading over the edge: How am I directing theater with 4 kids?

33 year old me, I see the coffee dripping onto the floor,  realizing I’ve given too much too soon, I say this quietly: You stopped doing theater 10 years ago. (I kneel down to mop up the coffee and give her a moment)

We both sit down in silence.

I try again.

33 year old me: Ask me if you’re happy?

I can tell she’s afraid.

21 year old me, looking down, not a hint of hope in her voice:  Am I happy?

33 year old me: No.

I think she might rush at me, knock the table over, or crawl underneath it forever so I go on, so I quickly continue-

33 year old me: Happy doesn’t begin to describe your life, our life.

She notes the tone in my voice, she keeps her eyes on me.

33 year old me:  If I’d known any of this was going to happen, I would have run away right at this moment in your life.  But everything that’s happened, it’s all of the-(grasping for the word)-interruptions, that’s given us the glimmer of abundant life.

21 year old me: But I’m not even happy? her whole hope in life is wrapped in a promise of happiness

33 year old me: Even better than happy, joyful. Mr. Darcy, he’s amazing.  You think he’s great now, but after everything your going to go through together you’re going to really know him, not just how you think you do now.  Then you’ll know for sure that you’re the luckiest girl in the world.  When he tells you everyday for ten years that “you’re beautiful”, you’re actually going to feel beautiful, on some days. When he becomes a father, you’re going to see God’s goodness working in your home.  When he holds you up through the surgeries and takes care of your father like he’s his own, 12 years from now he’ll look at you with those same eyes and you’ll know what it is to be loved-and it will be a glimpse of God’s love for you, us.

Sometimes I’m too distracted by the daily challenges to recognize the joy, I’m hoping in another 10 years we’ll be better at it.

My 21 year old self is slightly mollified, but only slightly.

21 year old me: Do you ever wish you were still me?

End Part One

Pictured below: Dad, Second Child-Jellybean, Fourth Child-Squishy, Mookie-firstborn, Mr. Darcy and Drummer Boy

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I found this phrase, “girl falling into woman“, in one of my college journals.  At the time I was in between.  Not a girl-child and not ready to own the title woman. College was a comfortable place between identities.  Still a student, I hadn’t entered that thing people kept warning me about called “real life”.  I still ran to the mail looking for care packages from my granny and headed off to camp with our christian group.  But I was doing these things with a ring on my finger that told me once they gave me a piece of paper I was moving 12 hours away to be a wife and around the corner, a mother. I was a girl, wondering if the ring, my age, giving up the job of student, if one or all of these would make me a woman?  Or did the way I felt in my heart and in my skin still entitle me to be a girl?  I was in between.

A few years later I found out that a ring(which resides somewhere in a sewage system aftering getting flushed down the sink), a house, that even a husband and children didn’t stamp me like a cookie cutter into a woman.  I remember sitting with our first baby in the moments after she was born, amazed at the privilege the Lord had given to us. Then waking at home in shock when I realized I was still the same person with the same issues, skills(or lack thereof), doubts before the contractions started.   Which group did I belong to now-I was somewhere in the middle.

A decade of marriage and 3 more children and sometimes I still think I’m a paper doll trying on the outfits I think a woman should wear.  Can I layer the the funky skirt with the apron, a burpcloth, a haircut that might help me bleed past the edges that keep defining and limiting me?  Or should I alternate outfits for church, playdates, adult dates, trips to get coffee and write?

I’m still a girl falling into my own definition of a woman, although I don’t consider it such a dilemna anymore.  I’m a collage-girl, momma, daughter, mrs. darcy, artist, student, teacher, dreamer.

I’ll wear whatever I wanna wear.

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