Mother's Guilt

There is something that can weaken any mother, no matter how strong they are - like kryptonite to Superman. Mother's guilt.

I can take on some tough people at work - high stress situations - long hours - presentation to large groups. Get me home with my 6 year old and have him tell me I travel too much for work. Mother's guilt sits on my shoulder.

Try to put my two boys down for a nap and not succeed after several attempts and threats. Mother's guilt grabs a 3 lb weight on my shoulder.

Have my 1 1/2 year old cry as I am walking out the door to catch a plane for work, continue staring out the screen door banging on it as I get in the car. Guilt just picked up a 10 lb weight and my neck gets a significant kink.

Broken. Weak. Heart hurts in ways you cannot image. Tears inside and out. Immediate questions of whether I am good enough mom. Is my absence going to taint their childhood in a way that will make them bad adults. Kinks in my shoulder and neck from the weight. Sometimes it feels like I cannot stand up straight the guilt is so heavy on my shoulder.

Then the breaks go on SSCCRREEAACCHH I have not traveled for work in almost 10 weeks. It is amazing the thought that if I am not there my boys will not be okay. I am blessed to have an amazing husband that is more amazing then he realizes and is a great role model for my boys. The realization hits - they are going to be okay and so am I. The economy in my life does not allow me be with my boys all the time I want to be. But I make sure I am present in all ways when we are together.

Why do we do this to ourselves moms? I think it is in our DNA and I have heard it does not go away with age. I had hope that as they get older this would get better but the elders in my life assure me it doesn't. And sometimes it gets worse. So I am planning on being with my sons as much as I can after this short trip and then going to a message therapist on Thursday. Maybe she can work off some of that guilt.

House Paint and Pick Your Own Ending

Our house exterior needs to be painted. We are paying to have it completed. It needs painting fairly badly. I like to paint, and when we go on mission trips with various youth groups this is the main work I enjoy - painting a house. But, we have over 35 windows on our house and it hasn't been painted in probably forever and the south side has the most windows and will require scraping and priming. I don't have time, so we hired it out.

We have a bungalow-type of house and I have been spinning on what color to paint. It has been various shades of green (dark green - then a much lighter green). I am sure styles and shades come and go and ours will surely do the same, but we have to live with it for the next 15 years or so, so it is a... complex decision for me and us.

I get stuck with wanting a complete old school look with authentic colors. As I search the internet I find lots of resources and lots of opinions. That is how I feel about the paint - lots of options and shades and such, but how about just some basic old school color? There aren't any old photos of the house that we know of, so we have decided to determine the color from our brickwork - which is still the original color(s).

That's how it is where I live. In the middle of the city with lots of options. Almost too many alternatives and choices. Narrowing down the choices seems to take the most time - is that where we're headed? Like a pick-your-own-ending book. We move along for awhile, come upon some sort of significant decision and let it guide us to the next. What if we read the ending first and then worked our way back?

We'll see where our house color takes us next, hopefully not at odds with our neighbors.

Interested?

When you show interest in others and the things that are important to them, they will show interest in you and the things that are important to you.