the grey area

The weekend.

Used to be filled with social outings, friends, drinks, crazy times, and sleep. Oh precious sleep....

Now the weekend is usually filled with laundry, cooking, cleaning and the kids and an occasional friend or social outing that is followed by an early morning rising with one of the above mentioned kids.

This was my facebook post today:

Homemade bread rising. Pie baking. 5 loads of laundry done. Who knows how many loads of laundry left. Dishes done. Floor swept. Cinderella Watched. One sof-y (which means the softest blanket in the house) finally found, which resulted in. One lil one with a fever tucked in and napping. One lil one doing his homework. =Just another Sunday!

I saw this today and just fell in love.

My facebook status could have said this:

Woke up at 6:45. One lil one puked on my bed. Changed sheets. Stepped on lego, cried outloud, which was hidden  under the 89 loads of laundry. Washed sheets. Dried mud flying everywhere when one boot dropped on kitchen floor. Swept floor. Didn't mop despite the dried fruit loop stuck to the floor that didn't move in the above mentioned sweeping. 5 loads of laundry done. 84 loads left. None of which will get put away and will remain on the back of the couch for a week due to One sleeping slightly feverish kid in one room and One sleeping night working husband in the other room. One little one doing homework that said sleeping husband was suppose to do with little one Friday when there was no school. (and lets just insert here that said husband could have done a little something around the house as well on those days off, just saying). Cinderella watched to keep above mentioned little ones quiet for 2 seconds so I can breath. Pie baking. Which really meant opening a pre made pie crust, pushing it into the pan and loading it with premade pie filling. No shower.  Dishes done because Cohen washed them. Homemade Bread Rising because I'm a little crazy.

It is 2:25.

The day is young.

Now today is far from perfect but I try

(and by all means sometimes it is really hard and sometimes I fail miserably)

but I try to

find,

focus

and remember

the high points. 

There is no free pass in life.

There is no "easy" button

(no matter how much I wish there was one sometimes!)

This IS life.

The only way out is through

and I am not going out without a fight!

we come with beautiful secrets

We come with beautiful secrets.  The carefully chosen title of my blog.

It came from a piece of a quote....

We come with beautiful secrets

We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls.

We come to every new morning

With possibilities only we can hold

Redemption comes from strange places, small spaces

Calling out the best of who we are

I want to add to the beauty

To tell a better story........

*I do not know the author

This week I've been pondering that again. Big things, tragic things, extraordinary things, devastating things happen to each of us, many of which go unknown to most the people in our lives. Do you ever wonder what is happening in your coworker's/neighbors/friend's life that they feel they can't share?  I guarantee something is there. Something is there, if someone would ask.

Do we all have secrets? If we all have secrets, why do we pretend we don't? Would it be so bad to say hey this is who I am. This is where I have been. This makes me...me. Why do we carry so much alone. Am I the only one who has secrets? Am the only one who has a story. Surely not. It may not be a story worth money. It is not a story all that unique from someone elses. But it is mine. My story. Why do we think we are the only ones with "secrets?"

It all comes together. Who we are. Why we are where we are. The secrets that make me...me.  Those impactful moments that made you, you.

So then I look around at others........friends, family, coworkers. As we laugh, as we cry, as we chat, as we share, I wonder. I wonder more today than I did yesterday. What secrets do you have? What do you carry alone? Why is it so hard to completely open my heart and soul to the world? Why do I hold back? Why do we as people? If I shared mine, would you?

The true secret in all this is not mine. The secret is what could I really offer this world, what could I give to all of you if I gave it all? The secret is so much bigger......than you and me.

Most of this I posted in 2010 when I decided to start a blog but it has been on my mind and a topic of conversation between and friend and myself this week.

Without intentionally trying I have been anwering that very question I pondered then "If I share mine, would you?" The last few years I have really strived to be more honest not only with others but with myself. To reach out. To share with others during "real" moments from miscarriages, to parenting frustrations, to the loss of this dream for the fairytale life and trading it for real life instead...and more times than I can count I hear from others....me too.   Me too *sigh of relief*  It's like once you open the door the "burden" the struggles and the joys are no longer yours alone to carry. I have found a few others who have been willing to take the risk and be honest too about their "secrets" about their hopes and fears and real lives..not the lives we project to the outside world...but their real, every day, lives. In that I have cried. I have hurt, for myself, for them, for others, but I have found hope too.  Real hope. That makes every moment, every tear worth it.

The quote above that started this whole blog and self reflection I just realized today has been a guiding light and in fact,

I have found redemption in strange places and small spaces.

Calling out to best of who I am.

Life is a journey that is for sure and we are taking this journey without a map, without instructions, but when we are honest with others and even more important honest with ourselves the path to take becomes just a little bit clearer.

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. ~Lin Yutang