limited
It's the end of June, and our windows are open. After a string of endless rainy days, sopping and muddy, the sun--our knight in shining armor--emerged without its normal end-of-June heat. And so, the windows are open. My daughter has been asleep for awhile, my husband is riding his bike through the glory of a Minnesota summer's evening, and I sit listening to the clock tick, the birds talk, the cars hum. The background noises of life which I usually drown out with music or a podcast or a babbling toddler demand their attention now, greedy backup singers stealing their solos.
Last night I spent time with some newer ladies in my life, none of which had kids. I was relieved to find myself able to relate to childless peers as most of my current friends have children who tend to dominate our conversations. We talked of refugees and politics and international students in Mankato. We talked of life plans and I actually enjoyed not lamenting the current 2-1 nap transition we are currently enduring. It felt freeing to find common denominators that aren't our offspring.
I did, though, listen wide-eyed as they told me about all the things they do with their time--camping on the weekends, trivia at a local restaurant on Wednesday nights, last-minute movies. Their stories ring especially loudly tonight as I'm reminded once again that without a babysitter we are stuck at home past 7 pm. We are never given much training in how to handle our free time. Growing up, we are given tasks. We are given homework, jobs, chores, playdates. In college, free time is either with friends or doing schoolwork. I've had to fumble my way through what these quiet evening hours could look like for me.
We'll do a crossword. I try to read a lot. Catch up on a show. Cook something, clean something else, fold laundry. Think about writing on here, deciding I have nothing special enough to write about. These evenings, tranquil as they may be, sometimes violently thrust their hours into my lap, asking me what I will do with them. And I am scared to answer, because these hours expose my heart: my desires, my laziness, my fears, my very identity. Who am I when the world is so quiet that the clock seems loud?
And so these evenings come with more pressure than I'd like to admit: it's like those few redefining moments we have in our lives. Like when we step onto our college campus and can decide to be whomever we want, or break up with someone and feel the freedom to rebuild. I can do so much with these hours: take up a new hobby, re-master my senior recital pieces, learn a new language, memorize scripture. A world of possibilities, and yet most evenings I go to bed feeling shame over how I've spent my evenings. I could change the world, and I just did a crossword. :/
Perhaps the shame stems from these evenings signifying all the lives I've dreamed of living that I could never possibly accomplish. When people used to ask me my dream job, I'd have a metaphoric knapsack full of them and I usually just pick one out at random. So many things to do in the world: some of them are likely; others are possible with the appropriate amount of effort, and others I will never achieve. (I've always wanted to be a cast member on SNL. Probably a no at this point, let's be real.)
I'm not as ashamed of the natural human limitations I cannot change (SNL) as I am about the limitations I've created for myself: as a wife, a mother, as a resident of Minnesota which is 5 hours away from my hometown, as a graduate with a music degree (a path I would not choose if I were a college freshman today), as a missionary. All of these aspects of myself are sources of immense blessing in my life (and even things I'd dreamed of doing when I was in high school), but the buffet-style culture in which we live gnaws at my soul. We can never have it all. As a missionary, I cannot work in the secular workforce right now. Nor can I afford to travel the globe to the world's most instagrammable destinations on our supported salary. As a wife, I have chosen to stop dating, flirting, or entertaining thoughts of any other man. As a music major, I denied myself other possible educations like English, psychology, theology, or other realms I find myself interested in.
And as a mother, I sit quietly in our home most evenings past 7 pm, missing out on Trivia nights or last-minute movies (we still haven't seen Black Panther), able to do anything except go out. And that is life. Every decision, every circumstance, limits us in one way or another. No one is limitless, we all have our hypothetical evenings at home and the grass is always greener whether we're stuck at home or sick of going to trivia nights and envy slow evenings (my friend said she was jealous of my quiet nights!). We want it all, and we can't have it all.
Some nights, I'll have the gusto to try something crazy, or be disciplined and practice piano or actually write a blog. Other nights, I'll be the one going out to hang out with (probably childless) friends while my husband stays at home. And on a handful of occasions, we'll think to find a babysitter and go out together and spend an outrageous amount at the movie theater.
Every boundary we experience can be a blessing or a burden; either a gentle nudge toward where my Creator desires me to focus my thoughts on in this season or an unfair, stifling disadvantage to a current life stage. And it's not always how we look at it; some seasons are harder than others and their boundaries are especially suffocating.
Perhaps this season is teaching me the countercultural truth that my worth is not in what I do. Perhaps it is teaching me the lesson I never learned of how to use, enjoy, and rest in these hours; that if the sum of my life is the achievements I've earned or the degrees I've worked for or the impeccable way I spend my free time, it will never feel like enough. The shame will always creep in when it's time to crawl into bed. We will glance over at our peers' lives and compare and fall short (not realizing they're comparing themselves to us and are jealous, too). And the cycle cannot stop apart from grace, which lets Someone higher bestow our identity, our fulfillment; it lets us trust in the only limitless One, who fills in all the cracks and solves all the problems and actually changes the world when our post-graduate fervor begins to wane.
Last night I spent time with some newer ladies in my life, none of which had kids. I was relieved to find myself able to relate to childless peers as most of my current friends have children who tend to dominate our conversations. We talked of refugees and politics and international students in Mankato. We talked of life plans and I actually enjoyed not lamenting the current 2-1 nap transition we are currently enduring. It felt freeing to find common denominators that aren't our offspring.
I did, though, listen wide-eyed as they told me about all the things they do with their time--camping on the weekends, trivia at a local restaurant on Wednesday nights, last-minute movies. Their stories ring especially loudly tonight as I'm reminded once again that without a babysitter we are stuck at home past 7 pm. We are never given much training in how to handle our free time. Growing up, we are given tasks. We are given homework, jobs, chores, playdates. In college, free time is either with friends or doing schoolwork. I've had to fumble my way through what these quiet evening hours could look like for me.
We'll do a crossword. I try to read a lot. Catch up on a show. Cook something, clean something else, fold laundry. Think about writing on here, deciding I have nothing special enough to write about. These evenings, tranquil as they may be, sometimes violently thrust their hours into my lap, asking me what I will do with them. And I am scared to answer, because these hours expose my heart: my desires, my laziness, my fears, my very identity. Who am I when the world is so quiet that the clock seems loud?
And so these evenings come with more pressure than I'd like to admit: it's like those few redefining moments we have in our lives. Like when we step onto our college campus and can decide to be whomever we want, or break up with someone and feel the freedom to rebuild. I can do so much with these hours: take up a new hobby, re-master my senior recital pieces, learn a new language, memorize scripture. A world of possibilities, and yet most evenings I go to bed feeling shame over how I've spent my evenings. I could change the world, and I just did a crossword. :/
Perhaps the shame stems from these evenings signifying all the lives I've dreamed of living that I could never possibly accomplish. When people used to ask me my dream job, I'd have a metaphoric knapsack full of them and I usually just pick one out at random. So many things to do in the world: some of them are likely; others are possible with the appropriate amount of effort, and others I will never achieve. (I've always wanted to be a cast member on SNL. Probably a no at this point, let's be real.)
I'm not as ashamed of the natural human limitations I cannot change (SNL) as I am about the limitations I've created for myself: as a wife, a mother, as a resident of Minnesota which is 5 hours away from my hometown, as a graduate with a music degree (a path I would not choose if I were a college freshman today), as a missionary. All of these aspects of myself are sources of immense blessing in my life (and even things I'd dreamed of doing when I was in high school), but the buffet-style culture in which we live gnaws at my soul. We can never have it all. As a missionary, I cannot work in the secular workforce right now. Nor can I afford to travel the globe to the world's most instagrammable destinations on our supported salary. As a wife, I have chosen to stop dating, flirting, or entertaining thoughts of any other man. As a music major, I denied myself other possible educations like English, psychology, theology, or other realms I find myself interested in.
And as a mother, I sit quietly in our home most evenings past 7 pm, missing out on Trivia nights or last-minute movies (we still haven't seen Black Panther), able to do anything except go out. And that is life. Every decision, every circumstance, limits us in one way or another. No one is limitless, we all have our hypothetical evenings at home and the grass is always greener whether we're stuck at home or sick of going to trivia nights and envy slow evenings (my friend said she was jealous of my quiet nights!). We want it all, and we can't have it all.
Some nights, I'll have the gusto to try something crazy, or be disciplined and practice piano or actually write a blog. Other nights, I'll be the one going out to hang out with (probably childless) friends while my husband stays at home. And on a handful of occasions, we'll think to find a babysitter and go out together and spend an outrageous amount at the movie theater.
Every boundary we experience can be a blessing or a burden; either a gentle nudge toward where my Creator desires me to focus my thoughts on in this season or an unfair, stifling disadvantage to a current life stage. And it's not always how we look at it; some seasons are harder than others and their boundaries are especially suffocating.
Perhaps this season is teaching me the countercultural truth that my worth is not in what I do. Perhaps it is teaching me the lesson I never learned of how to use, enjoy, and rest in these hours; that if the sum of my life is the achievements I've earned or the degrees I've worked for or the impeccable way I spend my free time, it will never feel like enough. The shame will always creep in when it's time to crawl into bed. We will glance over at our peers' lives and compare and fall short (not realizing they're comparing themselves to us and are jealous, too). And the cycle cannot stop apart from grace, which lets Someone higher bestow our identity, our fulfillment; it lets us trust in the only limitless One, who fills in all the cracks and solves all the problems and actually changes the world when our post-graduate fervor begins to wane.
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