Sweating the small stuff... and the blessing that it is.
A screaming child, a dinner to make, a long car line, the five pounds that won’t reverse on the scale, developing friendships, dwindling friendships, busy schedules, sleepless nights, the absence of date nights, the absence of time…. time to breathe, time to think, time to— pee alone.
I’ve just described motherhood… parenthood… adult life in a First World country. It’s exhausting, and it’s also full of overlooked blessings.
In the midst of turmoil, loss and boundless afflictions, I use to think how fortunate someone was if all they had to worry about was a list of “small things”. At the time my life was full of constant, ‘turn-on-a-dime soap opera drama filled’ affliction, and I was envious of people with seemingly nothing of real ‘life or death’ importance to worry about.
Fast track to years later and to better times: times of less heartache, times of more normalcy, and I find myself sweating the small stuff.
Is there a layer just beneath my surface that has a cellular, muscle memory of every moment of heartache, loss and abandonment? No doubt, it does exist, and no doubt it can easily surface with a small reminder from a smell in the air or the way the breeze hits my skin, or a glance at the little white egg. They are deep memories of loss that were imprinted on my soul, and I can’t rewrite my own history.
But even with our past of affliction, as deeply as it was felt and as long as it will linger just beneath the surface; we can still easily find ourselves living so freely that we get caught up in the everyday.
And that is a true blessing.
It is a blessing to be in a place to sweat the small stuff because our lives are absent of the big stuff. The big stuff that is mostly unpreventable and too terrifying to imagine surviving so we instead focus on the little things that happen every day: the commute home, the exhaustion of adulthood, the gossip of friendships, the uncooked meal, the trip to the grocery store or the to-do list that is never done.
Our lives are as full of blessings as they are full of small worries. With each moment we sweat the small stuff, we are reminded are lives are so blessed we don’t have anything more to worry about.
The list is quite endless because our blessings are quite boundless.
We are the fortunate. We are the ones that are in a period without loss, without great change, without afflictions that we fear are unsurvivable.
We are in the middle of the backwash cycle of a wave. We are standing clear as the wave of affliction has receded… but it might (and it will likely) come again.
It will come again because life is full of blessings. It is full of blessings when we only have the small stuff to sweat, and it is full of blessings when the wave of affliction comes crashing again. We can learn and grow in both as long as we remember each cycle.
When we are caught up in our everyday worries, we have to remind ourselves of the past and what could come again in the future. We have to find a balance of worrying just enough to get things done and complaining just enough to release stress, but we also have to keep our perspective and gratitude that our worries are mostly insignificant.
In the middle of affliction where we are just barely bobbing above the surface to keep from drowning in our own despair, we need to remember that better days are ahead (just as we had better days before).
I’ve personally been reminded of such in recent days. I have found myself getting too caught up in the every day and while feeling those blessings, I have also felt guilt over losing perspective.
Here's to our endless blessings of both worrying too much over nothing, and to our blessings of affliction that give us gratitude for the good days.
I’ve just described motherhood… parenthood… adult life in a First World country. It’s exhausting, and it’s also full of overlooked blessings.
In the midst of turmoil, loss and boundless afflictions, I use to think how fortunate someone was if all they had to worry about was a list of “small things”. At the time my life was full of constant, ‘turn-on-a-dime soap opera drama filled’ affliction, and I was envious of people with seemingly nothing of real ‘life or death’ importance to worry about.
Fast track to years later and to better times: times of less heartache, times of more normalcy, and I find myself sweating the small stuff.
Is there a layer just beneath my surface that has a cellular, muscle memory of every moment of heartache, loss and abandonment? No doubt, it does exist, and no doubt it can easily surface with a small reminder from a smell in the air or the way the breeze hits my skin, or a glance at the little white egg. They are deep memories of loss that were imprinted on my soul, and I can’t rewrite my own history.
But even with our past of affliction, as deeply as it was felt and as long as it will linger just beneath the surface; we can still easily find ourselves living so freely that we get caught up in the everyday.
And that is a true blessing.
It is a blessing to be in a place to sweat the small stuff because our lives are absent of the big stuff. The big stuff that is mostly unpreventable and too terrifying to imagine surviving so we instead focus on the little things that happen every day: the commute home, the exhaustion of adulthood, the gossip of friendships, the uncooked meal, the trip to the grocery store or the to-do list that is never done.
Our lives are as full of blessings as they are full of small worries. With each moment we sweat the small stuff, we are reminded are lives are so blessed we don’t have anything more to worry about.
Our husbands work all of the time, but they come home every night (no injury, no passing, no abandonment).
Our children scream for hours, but they are alive and well.
Our obligations are endless, but it is because we are fortunate enough to have the resources and time to volunteer, to sign our children up for activities and to live in a country without conflict and unrest.
Our scale doesn't move in the right direction because we have food in our bellies.
The list is quite endless because our blessings are quite boundless.
We are the fortunate. We are the ones that are in a period without loss, without great change, without afflictions that we fear are unsurvivable.
We are in the middle of the backwash cycle of a wave. We are standing clear as the wave of affliction has receded… but it might (and it will likely) come again.
It will come again because life is full of blessings. It is full of blessings when we only have the small stuff to sweat, and it is full of blessings when the wave of affliction comes crashing again. We can learn and grow in both as long as we remember each cycle.
When we are caught up in our everyday worries, we have to remind ourselves of the past and what could come again in the future. We have to find a balance of worrying just enough to get things done and complaining just enough to release stress, but we also have to keep our perspective and gratitude that our worries are mostly insignificant.
In the middle of affliction where we are just barely bobbing above the surface to keep from drowning in our own despair, we need to remember that better days are ahead (just as we had better days before).
I’ve personally been reminded of such in recent days. I have found myself getting too caught up in the every day and while feeling those blessings, I have also felt guilt over losing perspective.
Here's to our endless blessings of both worrying too much over nothing, and to our blessings of affliction that give us gratitude for the good days.
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