Tis the Season

No, I am not thinking Christmas...yet.

I am thinking of a season of another kind. I am thinking of the seasons that King Solomon wrote about in Ecclesiastes "..there is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.." (3:1)

I love the extremes of the passage that follows that truth ..."a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance..."

These extremes remind me that such influx of emotion, experience and seasons are just part of the life ..some days are good days and some are bad.

That is a good reminder for me, because I am up early this morning trying to mentally shake off the day I had yesterday. It was one of those days when all bad extremes were "in season" ...uprooting, weeping, tearing down, giving up, throwing away ...whew, it was a doozy.

It was one of those days when it all comes crashing down, and the unfairness of all my tasks and my inadequacies collided. I was trying to be productive, but literally for everything I got done someone was undoing or creating more work for me. I would gather a load of laundry, while the 18-month old was emptying out his dresser drawers. I was dusting my bedroom (that never happens) while he was in the laundry room spreading dog food all over the floor, and filling the dogs water bowl with it as well.

When I was upstairs getting something done, they were all downstairs tearing up previously decluttered spaces, emptying cereal boxes or escaping out the front door (oh, what my neighbors must think of me!).

At every point of the day one or all of them were screaming, yelling, tattling, jumping off stuff, destroying things, pulling on me, demanding something, crying ...you get the picture.

All the while I was mentally beating myself to a pulp over being overweight, inadequate, frustrated, ungrateful, irritable, impatient ...

It was a doozy.

It was in the middle of this perfect storm that my sweet husband returned from his much deserved morning of golfing with a friend. His quiet, stress-free morning of leisurely walking from hole to hole, not one person undoing a single bit of progress he had made on the course {sigh}.

Since it was pretty clear that I was on the edge of the cliff of insanity, he sweetly emptied the dishwasher and puttered a bit, before he asked "Is everything okay?"

Bless his heart.

What followed was an ungraceful display of martyrdom at its best. There was whining, crying, arms waving and foot stomping,.. I am not gonna lie, it was ugly.

I wish I had a bit "but...I learned" at the end of this mommy-confession. BUT, I don't a super great one.

Except that despite the frustrations, despite the willingness of my sweet hunny to do whatever I needed to feel better, despite my kids' apparent lack of notice of my hissy fit ...this is just a season.

Its part of it. Its part of the joy of having an abundant life, full of kids, a home and hormones. Its part of doing my best to run my home. Its part of my desire to use my resources wisely (ironic, I know). Its part of the craziness of my life.

Sure, there are things I can do differently to help myself not get there again but I am sure that the stress will mount at least one other time before my kids are all out of diapers. I can work to better control myself and doing everything better but I am sure that my inability to balance it all will come together in a dramatic fashion again at some point.

Tis the season, afterall.

"...a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace."  Ecclesiastes 3:5-8