Sentimentality

Is that a word anyway? I find myself adding the "ity" to words lately. Oh well, works for me. :)
I have been having these moments of being extra sentimental lately. You know, where you feel like you are viewing the world from behind glass while thinking all kinds of deep, complex, tangled thoughts. Add music playing in the background to the scenario above and you REALLY get syrupy (psssst. In my case it would be NeedtoBreathe at the moment. Fabulous).
My mom was just here for almost a week and now she's gone so maybe that has contributed to my current state. It's funny, nothing extraordinary happens when my mom is here. We don't have earthshattering conversations, we don't mix up the most spectacular new meals, we don't shop till we drop, and we don't laugh until we pee (okay, maybe sometimes). But having my mom here makes me feel that deep satisfying calm of being somewhere that I grew up being. Don't you just feel like if your mom is there, everything will be ok? She provides me unspoken reassurance, invisible security. I did absolutely nothing while my mom was here. I let the whole house go to pot and managed simply to provide meals when necessary. We had fun simply being. I was able to show her God's glorious creation that is different up here in Indiana than it is in Texas. Pictures to follow. But as she was packing up her stuff to go, I assumed my role as an independent mother and started spinning around the house like a tornado, doing all the this's and that's that young moms do. Curtains close.

I find it hard to reconcile at times the extra special moments in life with the mundane, task oriented, no frills moments. I feel like life is made up of the things you look forward to, and the things that happen leading up to them. So for example, out in the distance, I have Thanksgiving and Christmas to be spent with friends and family. Wonderful, super special moments that will feel like heaven, truly. But before that, I have today, and a bunch of todays after that. I wake up, and see all the things to be done, taught, experienced and learned and it can feel a little daunting. God throws in amazing little things that happen mostly every day and so by no means do I not take joy in each day. But you know what I mean, where you can start to realize that today, is life. Not tomorrow, not a month from now when you have that vacation, but today. The clean up messes, pour the milk, put your hair back, get dressed, take out the trash, get out the crayons, unload the dishwasher, get the mail, hold the kids' hands, cross the street, say hello moments of today. I suppose it means we should find some joy and contentment in all the moments----not just the ones we love the best. And realizing that to my kids, their "special" moments are not my own. To Wesley, it's reading him that book this morning at 6:03am. To Noah, it was helping him count to 100 last night while I shut my eyes because I was too tired to keep them open. And realizing that the invisible security and unspoken reassurance my mom provides is the sum of all the moments she spent with me growing up that were most certainly not her favorite or extra special ones.

So now I'm going to get my duff off this couch and poke my head outside to feel the crisp air for a second, and then clean up the kitchen and get to work on some laundry. Oh, you have to do the same? What a coincidence. Enjoy your day!