The Endless Conflict

I have a few minutes before choir practice. Mike is going to pick up the kids and the babies are taking their nap. They will have to go with me to practice.

I have been in a somewhat reflective mode lately. Every 6-9 months or so I go through a what am I going to be when I grow up crisis. I guess it is more of an issue of acknowledging the truth about what I know I have always wanted and figuring out what I can do to get there. When I was talking to my oldest son a week or so ago about taking his schooling and his future seriously I told him to really work for what he really wants to do. I told him how I went to beauty school so I could have a good job while I worked my way through college where I would study to become a teacher so that I would have a backup if what I really wanted didn't work out.

What that really means is that I have spent my whole life on a backup plan, planning to fail at what I really wanted. And I have not even been able to succeed at the backup plan. I know, I know, you don't want me to feel like a failure and you want to remind me what a beautiful family I have. You want to tell me that the years I have spent with them have not been wasted.

Truly, I would be devastated and my life would be empty if I had made the big dream while not being able to get married, or pregnant (or remarried even), because in my heart of hearts, that is the most important thing to me. Truly, I would not trade what I have for any level of success, and I am willing to endure any manner of hardship to keep my family. Nonetheless, I cannot avoid the feeling that I am not operating at full potential.

Of course, as a divine daughter of God, my potential is infinite, and I have eternity to explore the greatness within. But I will not have that infinite opportunity if I do not make the most of the gifts and opportunities I have while in my finite, state. The quality of my life after mortality depends upon the value and diligence of my actions in this life.

It is two days later. I never even turned on my computer yesterday and I did not get through the laundry. I have two more loads to do today. For those considering a new front loading high efficiency washing machine, know that the loads take much longer to run through and you cannot load them as tightly, so they may not be the best choice for people with volumes of laundry they want to do in a condensed period of time, and you have to spend more money on detergent.

I do not feel like I accomplished much yesterday, but I could not not have done much more. Were they the right things? That is my struggle. Time to quit thinking and start doing.