Monday Musing – January 28, 2019
While this photo might look like an ordinary bag from the Bucks of the Star, I can assure you it’s not. Also, this isn’t an ad for one of my favorite places… though if they want to fully support my little Starbuck-a-roo habit, I will gladly and shamelessly promote them. In the meantime, here’s a Musing for your Monday.
Hang on to your pantalones because it’s about to get all real up in this hizzy. This Musing is brought to you on the heels of one of the greatest #MomFails I have yet to make… Well, if I can be honest, it’s actually second to the time when I had just switched from boob to formula and left the house on an outing with Hubbz and our boy only to realize I had forgotten formula. #TrueStory #ThankYouCVSforCarryingFormula #YouSavedMyAssThatDay #IDigress
On FriYay (not a typo) mornings on the way to daycare drop-off, I buy my sweet little boy Starbucks breakfast. Maybe it’s me feeling guilty that I have to wake him to take him to daycare so early so I can keep the work/life balance in check- regardless of why I do it, it’s something we look forward to and he gets so ridiculously excited. Hang on to that palpable excitement as I fast forward you, post drop-off, I am now 20 minutes away. I begin to collect my things from the front seat of my Jeep, only to see my sweet little boy’s Starbucks breakfast staring back at me…
SHIT.
I will let the thing that we refer to as #MomGuilt sink in for you, the reader. If you aren’t familiar with #MomGuilt, thank sweet Baby Jesus.
I spent the next hour beating myself up for what a terrible Mom I must be. Who forgets their son’s “FriYay Fun Breakfast”!?
Apparently, Folks, I do.
I knew that he was well fed at daycare and he had plenty of food in his lunchbox to feed him breakfast, lunch and dinner twice over (I make no excuses for my over packing his lunchbox… it’s the Italian Mama in me.) but I couldn’t shake this feeling that I totally and completely must have disappointed him. Is this the kind of thing that is going to send him to the therapist couch at 40!? I started praying about it because I couldn’t get the awful feeling that I had failed as a Mama out of my head. This lie kept running through my brain that I was a terrible Mama and other Mama’s definitely never forget the FriYay Fun Breakfast. Mid prayer, a still small voice in my soul whispered, “how about you show yourself a little bit of grace?” I literally gasped out loud and I stopped in my tracks. I spend a lot of time and energy in this life showing others grace. When I don’t want to, when they don’t deserve it, when it doesn’t feel good for me. Why is it so hard to show a little grace to myself? Is it like that for any of y’all?
We are so busy running around taking care of everyone else but we are the hardest and the biggest critics of ourselves. In that moment, in that realization, I took a deep breath and exhaled so very good. The truth of grace offered a little peace. In that moment I was able to flip my palms up to Heaven and thank my sweet Jesus that I had a little boy who is well cared for and well fed while I enjoy working at a career that I love… and I am able to provide things in his life like Friyay Fun Breakfasts… even if I did forget it on the front seat.
I end this Musing with a question for you – where can you show grace in your life? To others, yes, but maybe first and most important, to yourself. We have a Jesus who paid the price of his life so we can have grace. It’s something we don’t deserve and something freely offered to us. Where can you enjoy that gift that is freely given to you and ultimately enjoy your life a little more? Sweet readers, I hope you find some truths in this that speak to your dope soul. I hope it permeates your being and offers you some peace where you need it the most. Take some time this week to throw around grace like confetti. You just might be surprised by the magic that it can create.
Meet you back here next week, same time, same place!
