Life Roles

Although my blog is full of happy pictures of Shepherd, it is probably not too shocking to hear that this year has been a little tough so far. It is hard to be content in one place when you know you will soon be leaving. We love the friends we have made here and dread the goodbyes that are looming over the horizon, which makes the time we do spend with them bittersweet. To complicate matters, the when/where/how are still unclear, so a sense of instability is hanging over our lives.

I'm finding my reaction to all of this to be an internal battle between the undeniable pain of the situation and a deep desire to appreciate the precious stage of life I currently occupy. Shepherd will only be a baby once. I will only get to raise him once. I know it is cheesy to say this, but he is a miracle to me. Perhaps it is the bright side to my perpetual worrying, but I am able to fully be in awe of his 10 fingers and 10 toes because I spent so much of my pregnancy worrying that I would eat the once thing that leads to 9-toed babies. His vivacity and joy and humor and relentless activity (while exhausting) are miraculous. In addition to only getting to raise Shepherd once, I'll also only experience my 20s once, and I'll only be a young housewife once, and I'll only start my first art business once, and you get the picture. These are all blessings I don't feel like missing out on.

But I am constantly aware of a severe sense of disappointment and failure over the past three years, and I'm not sure I'm up to the task of being a preacher's wife for the next 40 years. Don't get me wrong. I'm up to being BJ's wife. It's being a preacher's wife that can really suck some times.

So this is the conundrum I find myself in. At some point I'm going to have to reconcile myself to the one role in my life that I can't seem to relish. I love,love,love being a wife, mom, sister, daughter, and friend. And while the feminist in me says that no woman should be defined by the job her spouse holds, the pragmatist in me says, "Oh, yes they are" (at least when said spouse is a politician or preacher).

In the mean time, when I start getting all fidget-y and depressed, I just go to my happy place, which just so happens to be the picture I posted last week of Shep smiling. Seriously, who can possibly be worried or sad when looking at this face?