Yes, I just quoted a Disney song for my blog post title and you’ll see why if you keep reading. Anyway, the first words I read in my quiet time this morning were “It’s all right to be human”. Isn’t that such a relief? Lately, not only have I been acutely aware of the ways I am falling short, but I’ve also been disappointed and disheartened by the way people around me have acted in their own human-ness lately. Let me explain a little bit more about how I’m feeling currently.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, we just moved. Two months ago my husband had no job and we had no place to live. In fact, we were in the process of making plans to move in with my parents and grandma, because you know I’ve always wanted to live a real life version of Full House. Then my hubby got the most amazing job, and we found a place to live. We literally went from looking for storage units since we wouldn’t have space for our things to suddenly doubling our square footage and having more space than we have furniture. So, we move and my brain immediately goes into “nesting mode”, quickly needing to make our new place feel like home. By home of course, I mean like all of the pins I have obsessively been saving to my Pinterest inspiration boards. Yet, it hasn’t been all that easy since we have almost no money for new things and I also have two adorable and tiny humans who take up a lot of my time and energy. So our home has the current ebb and flow of different boxes being unpack to leave a pile of things on the floor for days, then the pile being moved and moved maybe one more time, until it finally finds it place. All of my hoarded decor items I have collected over the years from garage sales, antique stores, and super crazy Target clearances, are currently taking over our kitchen table. It’s totally a logically place for that right? I’ll be super thrilled to finally be done with it all to feel settled and get to share it all with you, but I’m far from being there.
I’m going to be honest, I have not been my best self these last three weeks. I’ve been irritable, emotional (cough, extremely emotional, cough), and I’ve probably missed out of a lot of moments because I’m so focused on my checklist. The ‘checklist’ has a special place in my heart, it keeps me organized and I love checking things off so I can look back at it and see how much I’ve accomplished. But the checklist can also be my biggest enemy if I let it because it sometimes takes my focus away from being present. Balance, it’s so hard to achieve and I’m sure I’ll never get it quite right, but that’s okay because I’m human.
Hear me when I say that acknowledging that I’m human doesn’t mean I’m giving myself a free pass to do what I want and not try to be better. In fact it’s the opposite. Realizing my human nature gives me the freedom to keep doing my best but having the understanding that I’ll never get it right on my own. I need help, and more importantly I need Jesus. I think the saying goes, I need a little bit of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus. That sums it up pretty accurately for me these days, although I’ll be frequenting the decaf Keurig pods because I’m suddenly sensitive to caffeine like an old lady. That’s neither here nor there, because all I’m trying to say is that I’ve finally stopped to admit to myself that I can’t do it all and that’s okay. Some days I may try to anyway and fail miserably. Other days I may get the a ton of unpacking done, dinner in the crockpot, have memorable playtime with the kiddos, and still get into an argument with my hubby when he gets home from work. I’m human, he’s human, and we are all humans trying our best but destined to fail somehow. Once I stop to remember that, I can focus on that fact that God is good. I’m going to get it wrong, everyone around me is going to disappoint me one way or another, but my God never will. So, here’s to working on living that out by giving grace to myself and others.
