Perspective

To be completely honest, I often feel rather out of place having my own blog with a custom header and $10 URL.   I'm not famous, nor wealthy, nor do I have some spectacular occupation or interesting talent.  I've never reviewed anything here or given anything away.  I swipe recipes from other blogs and am only a mediocre cook anyhow so I figure there's no need to compete with all the good cooking blogs out there. I am writing my story as if I actually have a story to tell.  Except I don't.  Heck, even if I did, I'm not a writer.  Never aspired to be one.  Never even took a writing course in my life beyond high school English (probably by fluke, I managed to weasel out of college English comp).  So I sometimes reconsider having this blog.  I mean, what exactly entitles me to do such a thing?

The sassy answer is: because I can.  The sad answer is: because I don't have time or money to have a real hobby and this one is free, and makes me feel like I have a smidgen of a social life even if I hardly ever leave the house.

But a blog about motherhood?  And my girls? (I'm speculating the pictures of whom are the only real reasons anyone ever visits here)  And my completely ordinary life?

Yawn.

There must be thousands of mommy blogs that do the same but with much more eloquence and creativity.  I realize there is nothing extraordinary to be found here.  But apparently, I just can't quit telling you things you can read anywhere else and probably already know for yourself.

I started writing 3 Januarys ago.  3 entire years I've logged on the internet now.  I realize this is really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but for me, well, there are only so many things I have done (without pay) at regular intervals for three consecutive years.  Eat, sleep, and do yoga about sums it up.  I was in such a dark corner in my bloggy beginning, but soon into it, my world brightened.  No matter if I was drowning in sorrow or wallowing in delight, the words to describe it surprisingly flowed and flowed.  I didn't know where I was going with all those words and usually did not neatly package them up before hanging them out there for anyone to see like half washed laundry on a front lawn clothesline.  Still, here and there, every 20th post or so, I'd surprise myself with a sliver, perhaps just a single lovely strand of something that was maybe possibly kind of spot on Lindsey.  So I keep at it, all for the love of those fleeting occurrences of finding and airing the true, raw me amidst usually meaningless text and amateur photographs of my children.

When this new year came, for the first time in the past 6 I didn't need to hope this year would be one in which I would get pregnant or have a baby.  Suddenly, I feel extraordinarily quiet, like there's nothing to say that hasn't been hammered out before (and certainly better) by another blogger.  I feel like I am much like every other mother there ever was. Yes, different of course, but still so very much the same.  Also, I realize I am lucky, fortunate and content in a way that makes for rather boring blog writing.

I'm lucky because I have two children.  Two beauties!  And they didn't come easy.  Except they did.

I'm fortunate because I get to stay home with them.  Only it's not fortune, but rather trimming the fat, reprioritizing, a supportive husband, and lots of breathing out and silently counting to 10 that allows me to be a stay at home mother.

And I'm content because after comparatively minor infertility struggles, I've somehow unwrapped the box that contains my jackpot.

I am, like so many others, a woman who had a career, then made her family one.  I'm a sister, a daughter, a wife, a health nut that eats chocolate, and a still-haven't-lost-all-my-pregnancy-weight mom who has pictures of my children on my facebook page and cell phone wallpaper.

I'm all around status quo, pretty plain in appearance and my first name is really Jane.  Honest.

Though I mostly post about the good stuff, I don't mean to pretend that my life is better or happier than anyone else's (how would I know?).  I have my own personal tragedies, however insignificant. I have my own struggles and failures, guilt and shortcomings, same as anyone.  My life is and I am far, far, far from perfect.

But as distant as it is from perfect, it is still rather ordinary.

In fact, it seems I am the substance of ordinary.  And this could be considered just another monochromatic, toddler stories and baby's firsts, blah blah blah cliché mommy blog.

I read bloggers who write about hoping for a full family in good health: a woman who deserves and aches to know her own children, a dedicated wife and mother who just wants her injured husband to recover and know their infant son, an amazing father of a girl close to Emery's age who both grieves and rises up from the loss of his wife to name just a few.  And as they walk their path, I read and wish along with them.  I follow their journeys with hope as I read the strength and purpose in their incredible stories.

Truthfully, my picture post about how we got over 3 inches of snow on Christmas in Texas seems so shallow, so trivial, so insignificant next to the incredible writing and character and often struggles of so many bloggers on my blogroll.  Sometimes, I don't even want to post what's on my mind because of it.  Still, even though my own story is in comparison hardly an interesting one at all, it is to me, even if only to me, a story worth telling.  Interesting or not (mostly not), this is my path to walk and I appreciate it.  Despite the fact this is just another regular-as-they-come tale of motherhood, lovehandles, 30something laments, sleepless nights, perpetually unfinished laundry, relentless vacuuming up of animal hair, and taking 30 minutes just to get myself and two children into the car, it happens to be, oddly enough, the stuff my dreams are made of.

So to anyone that lands here, thanks for reading my regular ol' story of everything aside from something profound, be it for 3 boring years or for this post alone, and don't worry, I'm not holding out on you. Now, for the real reason you came:

Peace, my friends.