Living for the 10%.

I should be working on my free-lancing piece, but I felt compelled to blog because I haven't in a sweet forever.

I just spent the last 45 minutes cleaning up my house that I have been cleaning up all day. I have been actively cleaning my house ALL day, but it doesn't matter - it's destroyed again just seconds later.  My kids are all asleep (wonder of wonders!) so it will stay clean for maybe 8 hours until it's a mess yet again.

Often when things get loud and kids are screaming, I pop in my Air Pods and listen to a podcast to drown out the noise. As I was washing the soap out of Jovie's hair tonight in the bath while she angrily protested, one of the podcast hosts was talking about how he LOVES his life. LIKE HE LOVES HIS LIFE. He's got everything - the wife, the kids, the successful music career, and 90% of the time he can't believe that his life is this dream life. 

I have moments like that. But mine fall more in the range of 10% of the time, I am living through blissful moments. Sometimes it happens watching Mike and the kids walk hand in hand. Sometimes it will be just a passing moment where I feel so grateful and so thankful and the lyric from NeedtoBreathe's West Texas Wind comes to mind "It's hard to imagine a better life than the one I get to lead." Listening to giggles. Easton's and my bedtime routine where we read every night. Having the opportunity to stay home with my kids even though we tighten our belts big time - even more so with the way the world is turning right now. It's going for a bike ride. It's sitting in my backyard and watching my kids laugh and play.

I love my family wholeheartedly. Of course!

But do I love my life all the way around? Can I stand here and say confidently, "I LOVE MY LIFE!"

Uhhhhh. Well.... 

The other 90% of the time I am dealing with aggressive behaviors, doctors appointments, my car causing me issues for the 1000th time, assessing property damage, cleaning poop off my walls and my child, cleaning pee off the floor and sweeping up gel from diapers that have been picked apart. I am picking up hotdogs that have been stuffed in between my couch cushions and cleaning handfuls of Oreo carcasses from...well...EVERYWHERE. I am scrubbing my dingy couch cushions. I haven't been to the basement in weeks because I am afraid of what I will find. It's wiping three butts like several times a day (and none of them belong to me.) (I had to add that because if I don't laugh I will cry.)

I am dealing with constant touch - typically on my neck - with hands that have been where they shouldn't have been. Tapping away at my neck and tapping away at my last nerve most of the time. I spend that time on the phone with pharmacies, getting medications refilled, watching worriedly for signs of a migraine to hit either of my boys at any moment. It's watching for signs of drug interactions. It's living a special needs and law enforcement lifestyle. It's praying Grayson doesn't bolt. It's dealing with meltdowns in the doughnut shop. It's a million other things. It's berating myself because I forgot to to do something, or I shouldn't have said something that I did and and and....seriously a million other things.

Here's my issue: How do I go from loving my life 90% of the time from just 10% of the time?

How do you create the life you love? Because I have been working at that very hard for many years now, and I have only seem to have gone backward. 

I have been trying so hard to find ways to get to 90% of the time. I propose these ideas to Mike, and he just shakes his head. How about a dog? A stocktank pool? That pretty new Durango at the dealership? How about a patio? What if we - insert crazy schemes here - all because things are hard every single day and I am trying desperately to find something that brings us just a modicum of happiness. Granted all of my suggestions are crazy expensive, but still. (He's weakening...someday he will say yes.)

None of those things are going to bring real happiness. Maybe some temporary fleeting happiness but that's all it is.

I will leave it at this. If I am able to love my life 10% of the time, maybe that's not so bad. And if that's all I can have at this time, then I will really do my very best to enjoy that 10% and bask in it as much as I can so when I am in a 90% part of my life, I will remember that I still have good things to hold on to when life gets too rough. 

I don't talk much about my faith - and I probably should do that more - but that's also a MAJOR component of holding to that 10%. If I didn't have that, I don't know where I would be right now. 

What are your percentages?