I’ve had this post mulling in my head for weeks. It was one of those where the words would play out beautifully in my head, and then every time I would sit down to write the words would come out as a jumbled mess. Then Friday happened, that absolute horror in Connecticut, and I found myself in Target with tears rolling down my face grasping to understand evil and crying for the parents and families whose lives were robbed of normal. So now, I finally write. And those words? About life – and normal. ~Rachel
I was grumbling.
Not your normal grumble, but rather that under the breath discontent grumble that can be easy to adopt when one isn’t careful. My older boys’ room looked like it had never been cleaned before. I am completely not joking sadly serious. Toys mixed together with papers with peels of a clementine that should never have been there with pens and markers and clothes and dirty socks and books and anything else you could imagine. It was all there – percolating into this gigantic mess that took me four hours to straighten and deal with. Leftovers from weeks where the cleaning was just on the surface leaving behind residue and the obvious example that looking at stuff on the surface doesn’t really solve the issue.
Grumble, grumble, grumble.
The boys would come in and offer to help and I would just grumble back at them. I don’t need your help or if you had just been a steward of your room this crazy chaos wouldn’t have happened or I’ll just do it myself. Martyr mom. That was me. Complaining, not accepting help, and just grumbling my way through normal.
I pulled out the vacuum determined to at least get the floor clean even though I had a massive pile of things to sort through. I flipped it on, the soft hum filled the room, and I looked up to see Caleb sitting there, on his bed, stacking books and pulling Legos out of the pile and tossing them in the large bin. He looked at me, the grumbling mom, and simply smiled. A sincere I love you even when you complain about this messy room smile.
As I held the vacuum, still running, my eyes welled up with tears. When did I lose the beauty in this normal, even though the normal like today was frustrating? When did the gift of having children in my home get lost and I instead just wanted every little thing perfect and tight and without mess?
Childhood is messy. My goodness, life is messy.
We don’t know our days. This is even more pressed on me as I look at pictures of little children who are no older than my own kids whose lives were unfairly lost last [December]. Those parents would give anything for a room cluttered with a pile of stuff and an eager little one there to help sort through the pieces and here I was grumbling. Perspective, perspective, perspective.
It’s so easy to lose.
Sadly, it’s often when we lose the things that matter that we regain the perspective of just how much those things, those people, matter to us. It baffles my mind how quickly I lose sight of the joy in the gifts in life that are smack in front of my face. But, how to keep it? Keep vacuuming beautiful. Choose something, a daily task – laundry, dishes, folding clothes, picking up – and make it a benchmark, a reminder, for you to remember the preciousness of the life that you have in front of your face. And make it something that is the most unglamorous. I’ve found that when you lose normal you miss those things the most and long for the days when you can simply vacuum a room with your seven year old sitting on the bed cleaning beside you.
Life is good. Life is a gift. Life is precious.
Don’t let the mundane moments in life rob you from the beauty of normal that surrounds you. Remind yourself to look for the beauty, the gems that are tucked within the fabric of the everyday normal. Force yourself to wake up, to see, the remember, and to be thankful for the blessings that fill your life.
Don’t lose sight of the good.
Vacuuming is beautiful. It’s a representation of normal, and normal, my dear friends, is an absolute gift. Celebrate normal. Celebrate those vacuuming the kids’ floor who made a huge mess but are sitting in your home playing moments of life.
Keep perspective. Savor today. Love the little things.
This post was originally published on Finding Joy on December 17, 2012. Reprinted with permission.
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This is very timely, as I have had a grumbly day, and I was literally just debating whether to vacuum when I pulled up this post. Thank you.
Thank you so much foe this beautiful reminder. I’ve been struggling with the chaos of 6 kids, one getting married next month, and getting too overwhelmed. I need to enjoy the moment amid the chaos.
Love it. Normal is such a blessing. I am so glad to see Rachel joining Power of Moms. I have recently discovered her blog and love it. Her words and photography are beautiful. Looking forward to seeing more from her.
This is absolutely beautiful!!!
Yes, yes, yes! This is perfect.
There is such a struggle for us mamas between enjoying life with our kids and keeping a nice home. And it’s sometimes hard to remember that we can have both, but it may not look neat and tidy all the time 🙂
I appreciate this reminder! Thanks so much Rachel (and Power of Moms).
Beautiful. So true
I always think of the story of a young woman grumbling about doing laundry around her grandmother who was a Holocaust survivor. Her grandmother said that when she was in the Nazi concentration camps, which were sometimes on the edge of towns, she would look at the wash hanging out on the lines of the towns people and wish she could do her own laundry.
I don’t tell you this story to make anyone feel guilty- I never liked learning or teaching through guilt- but it just helps me gain perspective. I want to be doing laundry for my family- I want to raise my family and that means doing those regular mundane thing, cooking, vacuuming and laundry. I am more of a spiritual person so I find the mundane so hard to do unless I look for meaning within. Thank you so much for this. This will be a help when I clean up today!
I so agree. It is easy to lose perspective. My four little ones are now big…24, 23, 19, and 18. Many times I go up the stairs and just get lost in the pictures on the wall of my little ones. How I miss those days. At the time, laundry, vacuuming, messes in general made me grumble. Surprisingly so, I miss those days. I am always telling young mothers to cherish each and every moment. Beautiful post!
Thank you…I am guilty of that kind of grumbling. Perspective changes everything and is the reminder of how precious our ordinary days with our children are. Wonderful thoughts–thanks again.
A beautiful, powerful post. I love the suggestion to choose some mundane, sometimes somewhat irritating task and use it as a reminder of the preciousness of “normal.”
My parents always had posted over their kitchen sink a little piece of cardstock with the following poem written on it. My father, now four years passed, took it from his parents’ kitchen after his mother passed 50 years ago this March. I asked him if I could have it when I had my first child and no dishwasher. “Thank God for dirty dishes.They have their tale to tell. While other folks go hungry, we are eating very well. With House and Health,and Happiness, We shouldn’t want to fuss, for by this stack of evidence, God’s very good to us.” It is one of my most treasured family heirlooms.—Thank you for the post.
To GRAY: Thank you for sharing your treasured family heirloom! I copied and pasted the poem and I am going to put it in a little frame to put over the sink in my house. Such gratitude is wonderful in reminding us that we “get to” do these things and the fruit and blessings of having a family and having enough.