The Bliss of Ignorance

I am aging. I don't care what you 50 somethings say, I am getting old. As of Sunday, I am officially in my late 20s, which means, I'm kind of a grown up.

I know growing up isn't all bad, but I really, really liked being young. But for now, I've decided to grab life by the horns, accept the fact that I am too old to shop in some stores, and drive my minivan like the mama that I am.

The good thing about getting up in years is that you do get wiser. You learn things that you could only possibly learn from life experience and from "being there". I often find myself thinking, "If I'd only known then what I know now"...

But the truth is, I'm glad I did not always know what I know now. If I would have known how much a broken heart hurts, I never would have loved with wreckless abandon. I would have kept walls up and never let anybody in. And we won't even go into if I knew how hard marriage was going to be, but then again, if I would have known how great it was going to be, I could have made even more mistakes to get there sooner.

I learned at a young age that kids can and do die. That's a harsh truth to have to come to terms with. When I was 12, a friend of mine died after being hit by a car. I'll never forget how life changing that was. Ever since then, when I hear of a death, I immediately think of the enormous amount of pain so many people are going through because of the loss of one person. Though I learned this lesson young, I am glad I did not know anything much about death before then. If I would have know that kids really did die young and were not invincible, I would not have had at least 12 years of that bliss.

I am glad that I did not know that my niece was going to have brain cancer at 3 years old. The argument could be made that we would have been even more diligent about our time with her, etc., but then we would have had a dark cloud over us the first 3 years of her life. Everytime she hit a milestone, we would have been thinking,"This is amazing, but she's in for something horrible soon". And I am glad that we did not know that she was going to be a survivor right when she was diagnosed. I know...that sounds really grim, but if we would have known, we would not have spent hours on our knees praying and becoming closer with God. We would not know as much about His love and mercy and peace.

And I am glad that I did not know how hard parenting was going to be. There is no way to prepare yourself to have a part of your soul walking around outside you. There is no way to prepare yourself for the crazy amount of love you'll have for this little person. There is also no way to prepare yourself for how stinking hard it is going to be. How you are "on the clock" 24 hours a day. How you can never slack off at your job because a little future depends on it and because the last thing you want to do is give less than 100%. How your body will never be the same and you won't even have time to try to help get it there. How you become one of those people who deal with bodily fluids all day and do not mind because it's your munchkins. How you will go out in public realizing that your child is dressed way nicer than you because you have not shopped for yourself since that baby was born. But what I am really glad about is that I am living in bliss over how hard it is going to be to send them out into this harsh world, hoping that they will cling to the fact that they will always come home to a mom and dad who love them regardless and to the fact that they have a God who loves them. I am really dreading the day when I see my kid get left out. Or the day one of them is hurt because people are just plain mean somedays (and as a warning to all of you out there, hell hath no fury will be the understatement of the year if I get involved...just letting you know).

For now I am going to enjoy my ignorance. I am going to look back at the past and be thankful that I could be blissful then, but that I am wiser in so many areas. And I am going to live in the present, always striving to learn more, but smile because I don't yet know what those old 30 somethings know :)

And I'm Turning Into My Dad As Well

Recently I have realized that I am also turning into my father. My Dad is a great guy and has a lot of wonderful things about him, I just never thought of all the things I could pick up from him, this would be it.

My Dad loves simplicity. He loves that he grew up in the 50s and 60s where kids played in the streets, Dads went to work in the one family car, Moms stayed home and cooked big meals, and the whole neighborhood sat on their porches at night. When we were growing up, he always said how he wanted things simpler. He thought we only needed one car (by the time I was 16, we had four), he did not see any need for power windows, and he still does not know how to check voicemail on his cell phone (and the only reason he has a cell phone is because my Mom got him one).

I do not think that all these things are bad, I just finally get where he was coming from. I no longer want a huge house. I always thought that I would be so happy if we had a huge house...and growing up I often expressed my discontent to my parents that we only had a 3 bedroom house. Now that I have a mortgage and have to do the cleaning and repairs (well maybe David does those), I get it. I don't want to spend my whole pay check or all of my free time on my house. I love redecorating and turning our house into a home (I think I have redecorated the living room six times in four years, no kidding), but when that becomes my identity, there is something wrong. David and I dream of building our own house one day, but I am okay with building something small, I just want it to be ours...a smaller version of the house from the Notebook would do just fine :)

I see where he was coming from with technology too. I am by no means against technology...I am sitting in my kids' playroom as I type this, watching them play and catching up on my to do list, but it makes me sad when technology has replaced so many real things. I still have a basic Nokia phone. No internet. No e-mail sent directly to my phone. I see why people have these options on their phones. David greatly benefits from having a GPS on his phone for work and it is convenient when we are out. I just hate it that people are so glued to their phones. Are we really so important that a work e-mail can't wait until tomorrow...or at least until we get to our home office? Or do we just need to feel that important? It's just sad that so many of us find our identity in that. I recently thought about getting a Blackberry, just so my calendar could be on my phone. I was not having enough time in the day to look at my day planner, so I thought that would simplify my life. And then I realized that there is something wrong with the fact that I don't have ten minutes a day to look at a planner and schedule things. I know that having kids makes life more difficult, but I must being doing something wrong if I don't have ten minutes. I did think about how nice it would be to be able to check e-mails at any time, but then I reminded myself that my kids do not need to be raised in a home where their parents are constantly working, even when not at work. And when it comes down to it, my brother is a neurosurgeon and he does not even have a cell phone for every day use and his job survives without him, so I think we are good.

While I'll still learn about technology and enjoy my DVR and laptop, I think I will remind myself of the simple things in life that make life so good. I don't want to look back over my life and remember days of checking my e-mail and phone messages while my kids played in the background. Because the number of e-mails I receive and how fast I respond to them does not make me who I am and it certainly is not how I want my life to be measured.