When I Got Schooled (One of the Times)

So I've been gone a little while. Ahem. A while. But the other day I went to get my hair done....I needed it badly! I went to a beauty school. Not like the one at the local community college....it's affiliated with a national name, but nonetheless....it's a beauty school. Which sort of means that I take my chances when I go, but I only pay about half the normal price. Sounded like a deal to me!

It's been a little while since I've been there, and I kind of forgot that in addition to only paying about half the price, it actually takes about twice as long (at least) to highlight and cut my hair. So after I went through what I brought to read and read through the selection of well-worn celebrity magazines that were there, I started reading my phone. E-mail, facebook and...oh, yeah, my blog! Centuries ago I wrote here, I think.

I read and read and was so glad that I had written down those stories. Some of them I had completely forgotten! I laughed. I cringed. And I cried. The poor student doing my hair probabaly thought that I was having serious issues! (But after 5 hours, we had become pretty good friends, and I filled her in!)

I so needed that. My kids are 2 years older now than when I last posted. Two years in a family with children is an eternity. A lifetime, really. In some ways, my children are not the same people they were two years ago. In some ways, I am not the same person, and neither is my husband. I hate that I've missed putting down all of those stories. They're important.

But more than that, I hate that I've missed out on a frequent opportunity to refocus, to see the bigger picture. Somehow when I write a post/journal entry, I am able to see things in a way that I can't in the heat of the moment. And the next day I can more fully appreciate those moments, be more present.

I'm afraid that I've missed a lot of moments over the past couple of years. Life has been so fast, and I have often operated on the idea that if I can work a little bit faster and harder for the next couple of days, things will be better, smoother, and I can function at a normal pace in that environment. I can read stories at bedtime, play with my kids, have a moment to breathe it all in.

But you know what's happened. Those couple of days never quite got it done. There was more and more to do, and I would tell myself to push a little harder a little longer.

And then I went to the beauty school. And I realized that I have missed out. And I think my kids (and maybe my husband) have missed out. Because I couldn't focus on the moment.

I don't know how to do it all....isn't that everybody's struggle? I don't know how to have the house in pristine condition and still be able to have those moments in which I look into my son's eyes and smile. And still homeschool a high schooler and a kindergartener. And take care of a toddler. And feed my gluten-free, cassein-free family only homemade foods that they love. And take my fourth grader to school and pick her up. And take kids to our homeschool choir functions. And do laundry. And be the loving wife that my husband deserves. Oh yeah, and bathe little people. And sometimes myself.

So something has to give. HAD to give. And up til now, it's been this blog.

I'm rethinking that.