Cathartic Outlet

Thinking back to my childhood, I had a passion and love for writing. Then I hated it. Then I loved it again. These days, writing is an outlet, just knowing that I can put my feelings to words and transfer them from my brain (where a jumbled mess of 100 open tabs consistently overwhelm my thoughts) through my fingers and out into the data verse. I honestly don't care if no one else ever reads them. They're also a timeline that I can fondly revisit at my leisure. 

These days, there's also no shortage of overstimulation from 24/7 newsreels, unsolicited information overload from social media, and your run-of-the-mill doom and gloom from every corner of life. It's enough to quickly be overwhelmed and dampen your faith. But such is the work of Satan, and he's excellent at it. Is our country divided like the depths of the Red Sea that the Hebrews walked across? You betcha. Which is why it is SO important for me to frequently pour out my feelings on here, whether they get posted or not. I know I've mentioned it before, but seriously, if you saw the number of unpublished posts on my account, it would blow your mind. Most of them are not finished, but they were enough for me to release enough of my emotions to be able to move on, and they're also saved where I can go revisit them. It's always comical for me to revisit times where I was obviously stressed out and look at the "problems" I was faced with, to now have that hindsight and see that I was truly making a mountain out of a molehill. In the moment, though, our "molehills" can seem insurmountable. But then God.

I've been thinking and trying to refocus lately on the positives of situations. In truly bad situations, like the tragedy in Texas last week, it can be SO hard to see any kind of positive when so many lives were lost. The tiny glimmer I see? So many people had the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Even though the camp director ultimately lost his life, how selfless was his sacrifice knowing the danger his own life was in to help save others in those last moments! Or even the behind-the-scenes first responders who are out there just providing a cup of water or a hug are doing more than they realize for those in need. Lives were lost and families are hurting and will always hurt. I subscribe to an email news outlet that tries to tie all headlines to a spiritual message and passage, and they have used, on more than one occasion this year, this perspective: The promise of heaven does not remove the pains of this world, but it does give us hope, strength, and peace during life's most difficult seasons.

It's also been really hard to celebrate personal wins lately because of all of the pain and suffering around me, but it does help re-shift my perspective to see the good and the bad hand-in-hand. After almost 8 years of renting, we've officially bought a house!!! It took a LOT of discussions and pros and cons lists, but we finally found a place that checked all of our "nonnegotiable" boxes within a reasonable-ish price range. Let's be honest, nothing right now is a millennial's definition of "reasonable", but we're all just out here trying to get our feet in the door without completely breaking the bank (for those of us who didn't originally get something at a stupid low interest rate of 2% or 3%). We're super excited about it and are looking forward to having neighbors who are already friends and a place where our girls can experience a little more of what we got to do growing up - running around the neighborhood and playing with friends. 

We're also starting another adventure with homeschooling next week! We're starting early to get some kind of schedule down before we completely throw it out the window during our move. Emma is beyond excited but Penny still has reservations, the biggest one being that her teacher won't change every year (I'm apparently chopped liver). I'm looking forward to the newfound flexibility we'll find through un-schooling while also still maintaining a full time job. I must be out of my mind. I know there will be moments of insanity and overwhelming despair, but the positive side of controlling what kind of education my children will ultimately get far outweighs those potential setbacks! Gone are the days of stressing over how many words a minute you can read or learning all the PC words so you can make sure no one is ever offended. They will still learn the skills of kindness and sympathy while also learning the importance of facts over feelings. Moving on...I'm also looking forward to more time for adventures that can count as learning! So many of our friends already homeschool and have given such great advise on turning literally anything into a learning experience - chores? Home Ec! Going outside and observing bugs on the sidewalk? Science! While we won't necessarily turn everything into a school lesson, it will be cool to turn outings with friends into a learning experience, like when we went blueberry picking in a thunderstorm! ;)

We'll have a few trips here and there sprinkled about for the rest of the year, most of them just following Rory around the country to his competitions, but I'm looking forward to adding a few more states to mark off! 

We hope everyone is staying cool this summer and enjoying that last few weeks before school is back in session!

God bless!