I want to be grateful now. I want to know that we have made it through trials and tribulations many others have not successfully navigated, and feel pride in that, feel gratitude that we made it through with the help of our loved ones and our faith. But some days it just feels like for every step forward we make, we get shoved three steps backwards.
I guess I'm just having one of those days today. I do hate trite expressions that people spew at these points in time in an attempt at comfort. I know they mean well, I want to not be annoyed or frustrated by them saying them, but let's be honest here. Sometimes it's just the breaking point, you know? I want to be able to follow these trite sayings and have them be truth in my life, but some days, I just can't. I try, I truly do. I try to have faith that God is not going to let me down, that he will be there to pick us up and move us forward, that all things are happening in His plan, on His time. But sometimes I just want to rail at the injustice. Why? It's hard not to question things sometimes. Part of what makes us human, with all that entails. Sometimes I just get mad, at God or whoever decided we were strong enough to deal with these things. Sometimes I just want FAIR. Only, really, who decides what fair is? Yep, you guessed it.
As a child, whenever my sister or I would cry out "It just isn't fair!", my father's standard (and often quite annoying) response was "If you want fair in Kansas, go to Hutchinson in the summer time." It is an amusing statement now, but back then, in the throes of our angst about whatever we found unfair, well, amusing was not a word I'd use to describe it. But he had a point. Really, what is fair? Is it fair that Daddy Mac and I both were laid off within 6 months of each other, and of having a baby? Is it fair that our daughter was born with a birth defect? Is it fair that our son is growing up in a so-called "broken" family? Well, who decides that? WE decide what we are going to view as fair in our lives. And most days (today being an exception, because sometimes it's just necessary to your mental health to "wallow" a little bit, I think) I'd say, you know, it may not be what most people think of as fair, but it's our life, and we are so lucky and blessed in so many other ways, that does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Because, really, does it? I'm not going to stand there and say "Oh, we have it so much better than other people do" because while that may be a reality, it's a conceited reality. And while we may have it better than some, we certainly have it worse than others. And where does comparing our life to other's lives get us? Nowhere but "keeping up with the Jones's". And we aren't the Jones's. We'll never BE the Jones's, and frankly, I don't think I'd want to be. Most days I'm happy with our crazy, messy, stressful life. Because it's OURS.
Just sometimes, I'd like a break.
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