Sounds Like Life to Me

Gavin brought home two behavior "5"s in a row this past week.  When I sent him out the door on the morning of the third day I thought to myself "wouldn't it be great if he settled into a rhythm with his teacher and he could continually bring home a 5 until we simply didn't need to do that anymore.  (Don't laugh!  It isn't a pipe dream.  It happened last year.....eventually.)  Then as soon as that thought crossed my mind, the antithesis filled my mind.  Yeah, it is probably more likely that he will bring home a low number. Better not set either of us up for a disappointment.

I have been juggling quite a few things recently.  Mom to college students, an eminent engagement, a high school sophomore, and a 7--almost 8 year old, keeps me very busy. You add on to that Relief Society Presidency, wife, helping in the classroom, cleaning, cooking meals, working as a personal assistant and co-running a women's betterment challenge and I consistently have my hands full juggling two-three--four balls in the air. (How do 40 hour a week working moms do it?)

The recent engagement of my Jocelyn and Alec, and now wedding planning, has me dropping an occasional ball or two. I no longer feel like I am being mildly successful in most areas of my life.  It is as though I have just added a large heavy ball for me to toss into my juggling act.  Now there are 7 balls to juggle, but one is significantly heavier than the other and every time it falls into my hands I end up dropping it, or missing the other balls coming around.
One particularly discouraging day this past week I got in my car to go pick up Tiffany from swim.  I was simply exhausted from my day, considering all the things I had not accomplished. The song by Darryl Worley, Sounds Like Life to Me came on the radio and I let my mind wander from my day to the lyrics of the song.  As I listened to it I realized it was exactly what I was struggling with.  My life is wonderful, exciting and very blessed. I was focusing on what was wrong with it instead of what was right.  Life isn't about making it through without dropping the ball, it is about picking it back up and throwing it into the juggling cycle again.

The line "you gotta suck it up", made me laugh because it reminded me of something my brothers would say to me.  And it is something my girls and I would say to each other.

As Gavin came home with a 1 --the lowest EVER-- for his school behavior, I consider not the number 1, but the overall picture of the boy I am trying to help grow into a man.  And in that same light my girls I hope I am helping to become women, the man that I love, and the me I want to have become by the end of my life.

Instead of considering just the day in my life, I am trying to do as I was once told.  Consider the "sum total of all the experiences, knowledge and actions in my life" not just the balls that I dropped today, or yesterday, or tomorrow.

Sounds like life to me