Sunshine does me a world of good. And gratitude. I spent the morning planting seeds, garden walkways, painting an old picnic table, picking up sticks and putting them on the firepit, rummaging through the pile of rocks from the 100 year old chimney we removed from our farmhouse 2 1/2 years ago, and watched my half-naked son in amazement as he pee-peed on a tree for the first time, all by himself, and then pooped in the garage right by our pet bunny Lola. "Just like Joshua." he said, referring to the potty book his Mimi reads to him regularly, as with faith she reads knowing that one fine day my Lukey will up and "get it".
Sunshine after a good rain does my soul good. I have two weeks off of school to gather my thoughts, do some gardening, spend time with my children without thinking of tests and papers and group projects. Between school and work and raising two children on a farm, I have been reminded by an old and dear friend that I have at some level "lost myself". So easy to do as a mother trying to do everything right.
And yet in my heart I feel like I have turned a corner. I can't quite explain it, but it is a permission I have finally given myself to succeed, and do what is in my heart to do, kind of a recollecting of old dreams put into a new format and nobody but me could say, "Here you go gal, go for it."
I have had friends along the way encourage me with gusto, mentors who believed in me, a mother who thinks I'm wonderful (nothing like a mama that thinks you're wonderful even when you're not acting so wonderful), but I have come to realize that until you believe in yourself, no amount to belief from others can take you from the bed to the car to the destination unless you decide you deserve it.
"I was raised in an alcoholic home", has been my internal excuse most of my life. That "home" is now a thing of the past, only a fragment in my mind, even if alive most days in my heart, and I have to come to a place where I am willing to lay down the past and not allow it to control my present and future any longer.
Only I can decide if my dreams are worth reaching.
Only I can decide if going out on a limb is worth the risk.
Only I can decide if the risk is worth taking, and life is full of risks, isn't it?
Nobody promised me life would be easy.
And I cannot continue to compare my insides with others outsides.
I have to come to a place where the sun is worth enjoying, my gifts are worth sharing, and believing in myself maybe will be that bit of perfume that helps other women believe in themselves as well.
We've bought a granny sack full of lies- lies that we are not worth success, that having money is "un-holy", that shouldn't we be more "humble".
I'm not sure where exactly I picked all this up, but today, in the sunshine, somewhere among all the seeds, I laid it all down.
And today I am looking forward to seeing the sprouts, and the flowers and the harvest.
Amazing what a gift of seeds will do.
All for the giving, and the taking.
And the planting.
-Stacy
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