Living with Answers

It has taken years for me to settle into my skin, but as I do I find joy.

Approaching my 28th birthday means a step into being happier with who I am and that much more free of all the qualities I may not be destined to be.

I find I'm always struggling to answer certain questions.  Should I work or should I stay at home with my child/ren?  How do I reasonably achieve balance in my very hectic life?  How can I preserve and nourish my faith in environments which don't appear designed to do so?  And often my focus on these questions has me tormented to levels that I will likely find laughable in my 30's.  Or at least I hope there's some sort of positive take away from it all. Because if not, that's a lot of fruitless torture.

In 2013 I want less searching and more responding to the answers I've already been given. Answers like...

I know that the likelihood of my husband and I being happy with each other rises and falls on whether the dishes are clean but will appear as something else... like our ongoing argument on whether it is dish towels or paper towels which are the superior option for cleaning our kitchen.

I know if I miss Mass and find excuses to busy myself away from Reconciliation my soul feels so very dark.

I know that on any given day regardless of my job description, I can still make innumerable happy choices to read one more book to my son, to encourage him to laugh, and to help him form habits of a healthy mind and spirit--by picking up his blocks and saying excuse me after he fake burps at the dinner table in front of our guest.

I don't need to ask what the perfect job is for me or where it will lead me.  But I do need to write.  It is my charism, no matter how untrained or unread or unwilling.

I know that sacrifice is a good thing, something I need to embrace and resist much less.

I don't need to ask for the perfect way to be a wife.  My husband has told me over and over again.  He wants to engage in deep conversation, question the cosmos, argue, debate, reach for truth.  That answer has been in my hands for years. And I think he said something about playing one or more of those XBOX games too.

I already know how painful it can be to be an introvert, how uplifted I feel when I am making soup, and how alive I am when I know that the people around me are cared for and loved.  I know that a walk around the block is better than any long held intention to reclaim a runner's body and I'm aware that if I don't take the trash outside and leave it rather in our garage, gangs of mice will overlord that place where we use to park our cars and of which I now have sweaty nightmares about.

Living in response to the many answers already provided is sometimes just no fun .  Actually, that's why, despite the torture, asking the questions is such an easier task.  Responding to the answers means fixing the shoddy paint job in the bathroom which has my proverbial signature all over, working on the blasted budget even when I'd rather take a Saturday nap, and pulling out the video camera to capture whatever it is that this life is right now.

I have faith that my soul will find rest in Christ.  In responding to what is at my feet, He will shed light on what I need to know when I need to know it.  And in the end, I can at least say I took out the trash.