Tag: chaos

God is within her, she will not fall

julieannetaylor

The last several months have been nothing short of pure chaos. I taught a new grade level this year, after being in 5th grade for six years I moved to 4th grade. Not a giant leap, but still new and different. Teaching through a pandemic provided so many unique challenges – but it will be a year that we will never forget. I am also at the very end of my Masters program – which has consumed so much of my time. My classwork is finished and now I am working through my six-month principal internship. When I finished my last class I felt such relief – until I officially started my internship, when I quickly realized that it was going to be much more work than I had anticipated. And of course, managing a household where six of the seven of us live is always a daunting task week to week.

Lately I have allowed ALL of this busyness to control me and it has truly robbed me of my peace and contentment. My mind is always running – especially at 3am – and I walk around in a state of exhaustion. In my frazzled state I find myself drifting back to the comparison game. I look around and it doesn’t appear to me that any of my mom friends or teacher friends are struggling with life like I am. I see their perfect family posts on instagram and my self-worth shrinks. I know that the part of other people’s lives that I see is their highlight reel – I know this logically – but I still let it get the best of me.

This weekend has been really rough on me, and last night I felt broken. At one point, through my tears, I remember saying to my husband, “I just can’t find any peace. I don’t even know what makes me happy anymore.” As I tossed and turned through the night, I kept hearing those words on repeat. When I woke up this morning, I had a bit of a confetti moment. I’ve been trying so hard to do so much on my own. No wonder everything is so hard. I am not content because I have been relying on my own strength, rather than leaning into God and relying on HIS power in me. I desperately need Him. He is the source of my contentment, my peace, and my joy. Rather than looking to others and comparing myself, I should be looking to God and seeing myself the way He sees me. I am not supposed to be able to “handle” everything on my own. I was created to be in union with my creator as I walk through life. The emptiness that I feel is a God sized gap – just waiting for me to realize it is there for Him.

Today, I am choosing God. I am going to loosen my grip on trying to control everything around me, and open my hands for what God has to give me.

My heart is confident, God. I will sing; I will sing praises with the whole of my being.

Psalm 108:1

You might have to look for it

julieannetaylor

Just this morning, I wrote a blog post about enjoying joy. About appreciating the joy that is to be found around us in our lives. A few hours later I was sitting on the floor of my laundry room overwhelmed to the point of tears. Not tears of joy. These were tears of a momma who was teetering on the edge of hopelessness. Mommin’ ain’t easy. Somedays it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

So there I sat in the floor of my laundry room, surrounded by mountains of clothes (six people create a lot of dirty laundry) feeling like a big fat fraud. Where was my joy now? Didn’t I just post about how joyful life is and how all you have to do is look and find the joy? Now, to be totally transparent, I wasn’t crying about how much laundry I had to do. No, this was not about that. I will not share the details of what caused my meltdown – not because I am trying to hide my “ugly” – but out of respect for the privacy of others involved in the situation. And the situation is not really the point anyway.

The point is about joy. There are some moments where I am not naturally, organically overwhelmed with life’s joy. But that does not mean that it is not present. What it truly means is that I have lost my sight of it, while choosing to focus on the yucky stuff. My perspective shifted from being thankful for all of the good stuff, to wallowing in the muck that threatens to steal my joy. But here’s the thing….I am not at all saying that life should be rosy and rainbows every single day. I know that fact all too well. I think what I am trying to say (I’m discovering it as I type) is that even though life feels like a mess sometimes, and we as humans can feel way too caught up in the chaos, we don’t have to unpack and stay there. We can shift our perspective and choose to be happy in our circumstances. No, we don’t “fake it” and just act like everything is okay so that our friends and neighbors don’t judge us. No, we don’t bury our heads in the sand and not deal with the hard stuff because we want to dance around the house like a Disney princess. We face things, we learn to cope with things, we grow from things – all while we focus our eyes on the good stuff that we can hold on to.

I guess what all of my rambling here really means is that when you find yourself sitting on your laundry room floor crying and feeling like you just might drown – its okay. You are not alone! Just don’t camp out there too long because you might miss out on the goodness that there is out there for you!

Forced confinement

julieannetaylor

sidewalk chalkToday started out as a sad day. This may sound silly, but if you are from Cincinnati, you will get it. Today was supposed to have been Reds Opening Day. That means the streets of downtown should have been lined with fans for the Opening Day Parade. Today should have been celebrated as a holiday – as is always the case for the start of baseball season here. When I was finally awake enough to look at my bullet journal and realize all of this, the tears came. I just felt so sad. So many things we are missing out on.

But then, I stepped outside and felt the day warming, saw the sun greeting me with its bright yellow smile, and my mood began to lift. And rather than being sad about all the things we are going without, I fixed my thoughts on all the positives that are coming about as a result of our forced confinement.

Sidewalk chalk. Four of my five kids are here at home. All day. Every day. While that can be a bit chaotic (and by a bit I mean a lot at times), it also is time that we would never actually take for ourselves. Never have all four of my daughters and I spent over an hour in the sunshine creating with sidewalk chalk. Being that they range in age from 7 years old to 19 years old, we just rarely spend time doing activities together (stop judging – just being real). But today, we did! We laughed and worked together and created something we were proud of. We were happy.

Later, my oldest daughter, Cart, and I took a walk through the neighborhood. If you have a teenage daughter, you understand that any time at all you get to spend with her is amazing…so my momma heart was happy. We took selfies, we shared songs, we talked. And as we walked I noticed so many positives all around us. At the end of driveways throughout our subdivision, there were notes of encouragement written in chalk. Smiley faces, hearts, and phrases. Each one brought a smile to my face. And the more and more we saw, the bigger my smile got, and the more my mood lifted. Families worked together in the yard. The smell of fresh grass wafted through the air. Children played in yards, rode bikes, climbed on swing sets while their parents lounged on freshly cleaned patio furniture and watched.

This virus is awful and the havoc it is wreaking on our world is devastating. But there is a flip side to all of the negative. The world is slowing down. People are slowing down. We are talking. Playing games. Putting puzzles together. Creating art and music. It’s almost like this virus has reminded us about who we are as humans.

Sitting here typing I have tears flowing down my cheeks. (I’m a complete sap these days!) (Ok – not just these days…I’m a complete sap all of the time). If you stop and look, slow down and listen, you will find the beauty in all of the chaos. We will all look back on this time of our lives and will be filled with the memories we made when the world made us all stop.

What memories are you making today?

When I was a kid

julieannetaylor

Here I sit at my computer, feeling the need to express myself. Feeling the need to process through all that is happening in our world through words. I never imagined in my lifetime that I would be living through a statewide “lockdown.” So many emotions flood my heart and mind. Writing is how I cope. But at the same time, I don’t want my words to be discouraging or depressing. I truly am doing all I can to remain positive. I know that my children are feeling anxious (like me) but I don’t want to feed into their fears. My job is to calm their chaos, not create more. I want to be their safety. When they look to me, I want them to see me smiling and finding the positive in all of it.

Struggling to find my voice this afternoon, I turned to my decade old portfolio and dove in. I found a poem that I think is appropriate to share today.

When I was a kid…

When I was a kid,
My mom gave me a pair
Of rose-colored glasses

They were a gift
And I had to learn to use them
In the dark

You really have to
Focus to see things
In the dark

These glasses, they reflect
And they correct
My distorted vision

I put them on
To find the positive
In every situation

When I was a kid,
My mom gave me a pair
Of rose-colored glasses…

And I never lost them.