I was having one of those days, no weeks, where nothing seemed to go right. Life simply felt hard and I was exhausted.
My kids were not feeling well and had a whine that made my ears hurt. Work was taxing and seemed as there was no hope left to hold on to. My husband was frustrated and trying his hardest to not bring his work stuff home. People I thought were friends, showed a side I never imagined seeing. With everything going on that “poor me” thought crept so quickly into my brain.
You know the one, right? A feeling of nothing in my world is going right, and life is simply just too hard. When you want to run away with those you love most to the middle of no-where. It’s not a place I often go to. Overly optimistic at times, it is not a feeling that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. It felt dark, scary, and foreign.
In an instant, it all went away.
My sister in law posted a video of my niece playing soccer. At 15 she is a varsity player for her school. I have watched numerous clips of her playing over the years. This one took my breath away. In those moments of her rushing down the field, no one would look at her and know just a couple of weeks prior she faced a major surgery to remove cancer from her body. That just a few weeks later she would face more scans, a strict diet and taking radioactive iodine treatments. For anyone who didn’t know her struggles, she presented as a stereotypical 15-year-old soccer playing, doing the thing she loves most.
For me, though it was so much more. It was in that exact moment that I knew what I was worried about, stressed about and defeated over were such small things. Yes, my children are not feeling well. They will be in a day or two. I have a husband who loves me and our children more than I could have asked for. Work is hard, but there are so many moments of joy as well. Friends come and go, but one thing is for certain, I have a host of amazing people in my life who support me and will always be by my side.
As mothers, we take the weight of the world and place it on our shoulders so that our little ones don’t have to. My mother did this for me, I do it for my children, yet to some extent, I wonder if I should. I fall short at times knowing how to “handle” the small things. How to let them go. For a good portion of my life, I didn’t have to stress or sweat the small things. My mom did that for me.
Just like my mother I want more for my children. I desire for them to have the ability to focus on the bigger things in life. To ignore the small insignificant moments. Prepared to crush any mountain that may fall in their path. I want to know that if their life changed in a moment, as my nieces did, that they could stand up and say, “Not today cancer, not today.”
Life is full of ups and downs. Without the down moments, those up moments wouldn’t mean as much!
