Confessions! Question a Day.

As a mother I am coming to learn that a lot of my life is lived inside my head. When people ask "What's new?" I mentally review my last several days. Make beds, cook meals, homework, wipe the tears, try not to yell, run to Walmart again, volunteer at school... It all looks the same. One day blends into the next and the next. The only place where things really change is between my ears.
I have my little epiphanies, discoveries, resolutions, closures and battles in that invisible land of the mind and the soul. So if you ask "What's new?" I probably won't have anything interesting to tell you. But if you ask, "What have you been thinking about?" I might fill up an hour or two answering you! Some days I won't have anything to say about what I do, but I will always have something to say about who I am or what I think. So I am challenging myself to expose that private world of my thoughts and answer a question every day.

So the question I am forcing myself to answer in complete honesty is....
(this is kind of exciting. Wish there was music...)

What is something you believed you could do that you now admit you cannot do?

Wow. I am mean to myself. What a hard one to start with. But absolute honesty is my pledge.
And the honest answer is that this list is so much longer than I like to admit.
I thought I could have a house full of children and dogs and cats.
I thought I could handle mess and chaos with a laugh.
I honestly thought that someday I would be some grandiose writer who changed people's lives.
I thought I could run for congress. (If you are laughing right now, don't feel guilty. I am laughing with you!)
I thought I could raise children without yelling at them.
I thought I could work out every day and look like they do in the magazines.
I thought I could live in the country and commune with nature.

After 31 years of life and giving birth twice and being a wife for a decade, I am ready to admit defeat in a lot of areas.
I barely keep my sanity with two children and the idea of a dog makes me want to vomit. I am pouring my life so fully into humans that I have nothing left for other mammals.
When the house is messy (as it usually is) I have symptoms akin to medical shock. Disoriented thinking, panic, blurred vision, head pain- you get the jist. I can't just laugh it off and say "Oh, well, it's gonna happen." I know I will never be at peace with chaos, noise and mess, but I am hoping I can learn to fake it better in the future.
I really did try the writer thing with all my heart. I wrote a book. An entire novel with a plot and everything. And after I recovered from the euphoria of accomplishment I started noticing something- it wasn't grandiose. It often wasn't even good. But it was a good shot. I am content with that. I now have lesser writing ambitions. I try to write thank-you letters and words of encouragement to people around me. It's not the glitz of a published novel, but it still feels so nice.
Congress? I'm just going to skip an explanation here and figure that you don't need one.
No yelling at my kids? Okay, I needed some comic relief in this post. Accomplished.
A movie star body? Still laughing. I can let that one go and just hope for a healthy body.
And as for living in the country - I am now a bonafide suburbanite. I am terrified of the country. No streetlights. No sidewalks. No one to hear you scream. And the last time I tried to commune with nature I got sidetracked by mosquitos and bees. I truly love to be outside and look at beautiful things.. right before I go into my air-conditioned, suburban home and watch a movie.

Ahh, honesty.