I am a VERY pessimistic person. It is probably one of the things I dislike about myself the most, so I have tried (although not nearly as hard as I should) to change this little nugget. Unfortunately it rears its ugly head fairly regularly. Case in point:
I have been trying to get a specific picture of Teddy for weeks. Stephanie's sister took the most fantastic pictures of her little boy and there is one picture that I am determined to duplicate. Although she IS a professional photographer and I'm not, so it has been fairly complicated for me to get the lighting and focus and whatnot. My mom and I took several pictures while she was here, but upon closer observation we discovered the little one was out of focus. So on Tuesday I got Adam to help me and we quickly got everything set up for the photo. Unfortunately we started way too late, so the outdoor lighting was not much help and Teddy was waking up from a nap. Adam laid him down and I started to snap some pictures (we had him laying naked on a blanket), but he was really fussy and then proceeded to poo everywhere. Seriously- it was so disgusting. The thing is.. instead of documenting the huge ordeal and seeing that really the whole thing was actually ridiculously funny I was not laughing. Crying was more like it. I was hugely disappointed.
Two days later I was taking dinner into a girl from church (in the last 3 months we have had 9 babies). I make Tortilla Soup and as I was putting the container of soup into a bag I dropped the entire container into the bag I was going to use which caused the lid to come off and pour into the bottom of the bag. Are you KIDDING? So- now I had no dinner for my friends and was so frazzled I couldn't think of what to do. Luckily I realized that I had some in the pot for Adam and I so I just gave them our dinner. I was annoyed that they were getting basically one dinner and the bowl contained enough for at least dinner and lunch the following day. Obviously you can tell this led to another total breakdown. Again- disappointment.
I was talking to a girlfriend this week and I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the conversation. I think I went in expecting a specific conversation, but in the end it wasn't there and I felt more annoyed and bothered by the entire exchange. It wasn't anyones fault, just busy lives and unrealistic expectations.. maybe not unrealistic, maybe just more hopeful. But in the end it was the same-- Disappointed.
I think part of my problem- I try to make everything perfect and sometimes life just isn't perfect. I also have unrealistic expectations and when they aren't met I'm ridiculously disappointed. I realize that I get this from my dad. He always wants the perfect vacation and although it is a reasonable goal, It seems like life just doesn't always work out that way and you have to be willing to go with the flow so you aren't eternally disappointed. I've realized this week that it is going to be a lifelong goal for me to let go and if things don't work out exactly as I think they should I need to be more flexible.
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6 comments:
I loved this post. I think more women can relate to this than the perfect life. It has taken countless trying to get the "perfect" family picture for me to realize that the in between is what I want to remember. I don't want to remember the perfect kids sitting with a smile on their face, because their mom is yelling and demanding it, instead I want to see the corny smile, the fake smile because those are the things that I will forget when they are older and that is who they are. Like you I am having to realize that expectations don't go well with raising children, I can have them, but I need to be realistic. And that I am not always.
You have always seemed more optimistic to me than not. It makes me see that I am worse than I thought if you think you are bad.
I hope you can get that picture one day. I love you.
I am much the same way. I want things to be a certain way. It seems reasonable to me, but it must not be, because they hardly ever turn out that way! And I do get unreasonably upset when things happen like the soup incident -- and they do happen. My oldest child is a terrible perfectionist. I realize he got it from both of his parents, so he didn't have much of a chance. But when I see him getting so upset about things that seem so insignificant to me, I realize that I really need to work on this...
I always want things to be how I want them...but too many times other things come in to play. I worked with someone who finally helped me begin to put things in perspective...he handled complaints and one time he hung up the phone and said rather loudly, "it's not a dialysis machine." He then said that people need to learn to be happy with the simple things and look for humor in things. No one is going to die because their table is the wrong color...I try (and sometimes fail) to look at things more this way...I try to look for the positive... how much better your pictures are going to be because you got to practice more with Teddy(and he definitely felt better) . The next time you will have better light and maybe a diaper on the boy...hehehe
hey hang in there...sometimes there are days for perfect things and sometimes they are not...at least you are acknowledging it, and that is a huge huge step...
I hear you. I loved Kristi's quote about being easy to please and hard to offend and I say that to myself often. I know its more fun to laugh than cry, but sometimes a girl has got to cry.
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