I started to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert recently and at the beginning she
is struggling with what it is she wants. An Honest question that I have asked
myself many, many times in all of the variations of that question, the answer
often changes or sound contracting even to me.
Who is it I want to be?
I want to be a good person.
Sometimes
I feel like I am not as good as I can be. I want to be better, so that I can
teach my boys by example of what a good person looks like. I want to be someone
they can be proud of for their whole lives.
I want to be a good mother.
I
am mostly a good mother. I know I make mistakes and sometimes I know right in
the moment that I have screwed up and will never live it down. Between you and
me being a mother makes me a better person for them. It is one of the few
things I would consider to be my best quality. I love being a mother 99.9% of the time.
I want to be a good housekeeper.
This
is my weakest link. I am a better housekeeper then my mother when I was growing
up but I often fall behind. I have a terrible habit of putting mail down here,
there, anywhere so clutter stacks up. I
am always trying to improve to force myself to be better at staying on top of
the house cleaning.
I want to be a good wife.
If
you ask my lovely husband he might proclaim me a work of art, perfection in the
works. I pay him to say things like that. I love him and I am glad that we get
to grow old together.
I want to be
a good cook.
I
love to cook. I read cookbooks for fun. Seriously I have been reading Jamie
Oliver’s America (I need this book) I got so excited reading about roasting avocados
and how it gives the creamy fruit a nutty rustic flavor. I love, love food. I can always improve by
trying more recipes. I stopped letting the kids eat store bought cereal so I
could use some easy breakfast recipes.
I want to be
a writer.
Even
if I am terrible I write poems in the shower, at night before bed, while
washing dishes. I also dream about fictional characters’ lives waiting to be
told. I randomly take notes on ideas I have to come back to later. I write this
blog, and school papers. At the heart of this the very fabric of me is a writer
good or bad.
I want to be
educated.
I am getting a B.A. in
English in about six or so years. So I am getting there slowly but surely.
I want to be sustainable.
Right
now we buy about 80% of our food from local farmers all located within twenty
miles give or take a few miles. We planted fruit trees, and vegetables. We are
getting there. We stopped using paper
towels, plates, napkins, personal products, and are washing then reusing the cloth
versions of all of these things. I am sure there is more that we can do like
solar panels but we cannot afford them now, and we are not sure if our HOA
would allow us to put them in.
I want to be happy.
I
am happy. I believe that happiness is a choice. I actively choose to be happy
even when it is hard.
I want a relationship with God.
This
is something that has taken me thirty years to come to this point in my life.
Easter of this year we will become Catholic. I have struggled to find where God
wants me to be. When I attend Mass I feel like I am home. After many churches,
and reading on many different religion’s I found my place. If you are an Atheist
and wonder how an intelligent person can believe in an invisible man in the
sky, It is a choice. I see God’s work in the trees, flowers, and I feel at
peace knowing that God is with me and my children. It is the one gift that I am
most proud of giving to my children. I believe.
This list is a fraction of the things on my list of
who I want to be. I am glad that you are on this journey with me. I am a work
in progress, but aren’t we all progressing in one way or another. Your list may
not look like mine but I bet you have one too. Something that helps guide the
path you travel in life. I want to leave
you with Robert Frost
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