a taste of this evening. 6.20.16.

{via pinterest from tumblr}

i never write at night anymore. i rarely have the time, and when i do, i basically want to collapse on the couch, talk with my husband, eat some sugar, drink a glass of wine, and relax until i need to head to bed.

tonight peter went out to dinner with a bunch of his former small group kids {who are now seniors in college...}, and i have some time to sit and write.

i haven't had time in many of the mornings as of late because a couple little munchkins have decided to set their circadian clocks by the sun. and the sun rises by 6:00 right now.

this morning they were both awake by 6:10. and i was smack dab in the middle of a jump rope session with a side of friends.

but now.
now they are both in their rooms. one is sleeping, the other quietly fights it.

and i sit in the living room next to a half eaten quarter of a key lime pie {yes. a quarter of a pie. really. it's that good}. i can smell the bread wafting in from the bread maker in the kitchen.

we've only been baking our own bread for a couple of weeks now, but homemade bread - even the kind from a bread maker - is just so much better than the store bought stuff. plus, it makes our house smell divine.

anyway. i'm trying to "just be" more. i suck at it, but i'm trying.

i feel like i always have to be doing something. usually multiple things at one time. i sit down to write because i crave this time, but i'm getting worse and worse at focusing, and just putting my thoughts down on the page.

i crave writing like i crave coffee in the morning. like i crave exercise. like i crave a little something sweet at the end of the day. {or a lot of something sweet in the case of this evening.}

sometimes i need to just be. i need to stop trying to do a million things and relax all at the same time.

i need to sit and be. and be thankful.
instead of a to-do list {which always, always, always fills itself back up} i need to make a grateful list.

this evening i will be grateful.
i will be grateful for the much i have been given.
i will not get lost in the grass i think is on the other side.

i will recognize that no picture captures real life - just a snapshot of a fleeting moment in time.

i will be grateful for late evenings and early mornings.
i will be grateful for pie. and for bread.
for coffee in the morning. for a comfortable place to lay my head until then.

i will be grateful for all of this life i've been given.
i did not earn it.
i work for it, yes, but i did not earn it.

i did not make myself athletic. i did not make myself decently smart. i did not decide where i would be born, or what family i would be born into.

i like to think i should get all the credit for the things i do, but i did not get here by my bootstraps. i like to think that i've done my part, but i didn't start out where i started because of any merit on my own part.

that's hard to swallow in a world where a self-made man is everything. but we don't really make ourselves. not completely. yes, we need a heckuva lot of hard work to get most places worth going. but sometimes circumstances line up alongside our personality, and our station in life, and a whole host of other things to get us where we are.

if anything had been different - my parents, my circumstances, my personality, my house, my school, my siblings... anything at all, i would be a completely different person. and the same is true of you.

we can only do so much on our own.

we all need a little help. but we all have value.
too often we think it's one or the other - we are the type of people who don't need help. or we are the type of people who don't have value.

it's a both, and.
too often we wear blinders to the other side of the coin. we only show a tiny sliver of ourselves to most people we meet. that means they only show a small sliver to us too.
i need to remember that.
maybe you do too?

xoxo