Embracing Imperfection

First of all, it's Spill the Beans Day!! :)

We realized, with much horror, that we never properly welcomed fall on the podcast, so we're talking all things fall-important {my disdain for raking leaves, Ryan's childhood on the farm, etc.} and then we chat about my planning day last week - aka the day Ryan's co-workers began to mock me for what I fear will be the entire coming year.

Click here to listen.

And now...to today.

Is anyone else addicted to TimeHop/On This Day apps for social media? On This Day is one of my most favorite things to look at while we eat breakfast every morning. It makes my memory-maker's heart so happy to see what I was up to on this very day over the past few years.

So yesterday, I was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and I found my thoughts from three years ago: October 24th, 2013 at 9:08 p.m. I had written:

Thought in my mind at 11:00 this morning: "I need to leave work and be a stay at home wife today, because I know how to do THAT." Thought in my mind at 8:00 this evening after Ryan took over fixing the ENVELOPE PASTA SIDE DISH following my three failed attempts: "I just need to go to bed and let this day win." Here's to a better Friday.

I elected not to unearth the journal and find out what was causing me such consternation at work that day {I have a few thoughts, but if I'm right, I'd rather not relive them.} But I smiled and wanted to tell three-years-ago Bekah that if she could just hang on about another year and a half, she would get to leave work and be a stay at home wife, not just for one day, but for all the days. That dream she was too scared to dream was just about to come true. {You know...in a year and a half.}
 

I've told you, recently even, how much I enjoy this season of life, working from home, investing in our house and in our marriage in ways I could not as a working-outside-the-home wife. I'm not here to rehash that, because probably some of you hate hearing it when it's your secret dream too, but your time hasn't yet come.

I'm here to say that being a stay-at-home wife occasionally still carries the failures that October 24th, 2013 carried. There are days when I still wouldn't be able to make a pasta side dish without an adult helper. {We also no longer eat those...not so much on the clean-eating-approved list.}

There are days when Ryan comes home from work and I look around and wonder if I have anything to show for my hours of work within the walls of our house. Anything tangible that will prove to him {though he never asks for proof} that  my staying home every day is worth it to our family.

There are days when I mess up the laundry and pull something from the dryer that was clearly to be line dried only. There are days when I forget the one chore he asked me to do. There are days when he comes home for lunch and the mountain of dishes threatening to dissolve in a landslide when he left for work are still precariously perched on the counter. There are days when lunch is cold, because I overzealously got it ready too early. There are days when lunch refuses to cook faster, regardless of my coaxing, and he nearly gets full on Cheez-it appetizers while he waits.

There are days when I'm still in bedhead and jammies when he comes home for lunch, eyes wide and frenzied because I'm in the middle of the biggest writing roll and I haven't paused to do ANYTHING but pound words into a keyboard for the last however many hours. There are days the alarm goes off and I groan and say, "I forgot to get more strawberries for breakfast." {How can that be thought #1 at that hour and not on my brain ONCE the day before??}

Being a stay-at-home wife doesn't mean I'm great at it all the time. Sometimes I'm a failure and he has to help me clean up the mess I've made. Sometimes I still need to go back to bed and let the day win.

I say this not as a self-bashing session, but because I think there are too many picturesque blog and Instagram posts {my own included} that show tidy rooms and scrapbook-worthy moments, and out there somewhere is a reader who feels like a failure because she's living my October 24th, 2013, and she just wants to know that out there somewhere is an honest blogger who admits that sometimes the laundry is a fail and sometimes the strawberries are still at the store.

Ryan is gracious. He drives to the store in the wee hours to buy strawberries and doesn't complain about Cheez-it appetizers when lunch is behind. He even calls me cute when my lunchtime attire strongly resembles the jammies I had on when he left home. He doesn't question my productivity level when I can't produce anything to show for my day.

I appreciate that about him. And I appreciate the gift of staying home. But even in being a "professional" stay-at-home wife, I assure you I still have my days. Bring me an adult helper and another coffee, please. And let's start over again tomorrow.