Writing my blessings on the wall

I went to Seattle yesterday, the Left Coast, and I was away from my bucolic little town and my happy little family for 20 hours.  It was too long.  When we moved here, I immediately loved our new town, new ward, new friends, new house, new and different life.  But it took awhile for the slower pace, the peace and calm and family world to sink in and change me.  I am now fully converted to my small town life and it was a jarring, shocking, painful reality to be back in the world I once thought I was made for and would miss.  I was all business there.  I was on the ladder and I was climbing.  We left in part because my wise husband knew that the politics, the work-focused life, the frenetic pace, the competition - it was toxic, particularly to me, because I thrived so well in it.  I could not see how disconnected I was from being a mother and a wife.  I thought I was one of those women who is "not cut out" to be a SAHM.  Now, I work from home and that is a blessing that I cannot be grateful enough to have, but I wish I could have it all.  And having it all means something very different to me now.  I wish with all my heart that I did not have to turn on the computer every morning and tap back into that other world where my value is measured in IQ points.  I wish with all my heart that my kids reaped the benefits of all the talent and capacity that make me so valued in the working world.  I wish that I gave the best and the most of my energy to the job that is mine by divine design.

Looking back over the day, I can see that I did not fail either world; I kept my standards, and I did a good job.  Yet this morning I feel injured and afraid.  I want to just sit with my children and hold them.  I want to spend an hour with my husband holding me, reminding me that I am still the person I have become, and that my brush with that other world has not turned me back into the person I was.

I am grateful now more than ever that I am able to strike something of a balance.  This life is not exactly as I want it to be, but I know that the Lord is not unaware in the least degree of our circumstances.  Perhaps if I was not divided between both worlds I would not appreciate how truly blessed I am that most of my life is spent in the life I want.  Opposition in all things, right?  I once visited a dear and sweet 90-something woman in the hospital.  She said that between visitors, she would lie in her bed, and with her finger in the air, write her blessings on the blank wall in front of her.  For the rest of my life, I believe that the best phrasing I can devise for the feeling I have right now is, "sitting in the hospital, writing my blessings on the wall".

God bless you, every one.