Can I have a little bit of grace?

Every day, I find myself questioning whether or not I am good at enough at any of the things that are currently my responsibility. I question whether I am doing all of the right things as a mom, a wife, a student, an employee, etc.. This morning around 0330, it dawned on me that I don’t have to be perfect at everything. There has only ever been one perfect person, and He understands and loves my imperfections. So why have I been beating myself up about them? As a mom, I think that it is hard for me to be okay with making a mistake. I mean, I have been given the responsibility of shaping my son and daughter into the people that they will be for the rest of their lives. That is a huge responsibility.

I want them to be wonderful human beings and I know that my influence will help shape that, but I also know that everyone makes mistakes. It is inevitable. Parenthood does not come with a step by step manual that you can follow day by day to make sure that you are hitting every single point perfectly. That is unrealistic and could you imagine how long that would take someone to actually come up with that? And who has the authority to actually say what the right and wrong way to parent would be? It is so disheartening when I am on social media and I see women bashing other women about the way that they are parenting their children. Unless someone is abusing or neglecting their child, I don’t think anyone has the right to say that what one person is doing is wrong. It is probably what works best for their life and we have no right to judge that.

I am a strong believer in the saying that you can’t tell me how to live my life unless you have first walked a mile in my shoes. Until you know exactly what someone is dealing with, you will never be the expert on what they should or should not be doing with their children, their marriage, their career or any other aspect of life. I find it extremely difficult to believe that I am doing every single thing in my life 100% well every single day, but I have learned to give myself a little bit of grace. I looked at a pile of clothes that I knew needed to be folded last night and I opted to read my kids two more bedtime stories instead. Normally, I would have stayed up really late folding the clothes, but I had other things that I needed to do and I will fold the clothes. There won’t be any war on laundry happening in the next few hours, so I am sure it will be fine.

I am taking this approach with every aspect of my life. I am going to prioritize the things that matter and make sure that I am accomplishing those to the best of my abilities instead of trying to do everything all at once. This approach makes the planner in me a little bit nervous, but I know that in order to be good at anything, I have to be great emotionally, mentally and physically and I know that being stressed out and exhausted about everything was actually accomplishing nothing. So, I am prepared to tackle today and I will be okay with leaving a few things undone as long as I know that the things I did complete were done to the best of my abilities. Isn’t that what life is about anyway?

Hey Google, what’s my purpose?

Since I retired from the Army in 2014, I feel like I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to find where I belong. When I was serving on active duty, I felt like I knew my why. I had a plan for life. I enjoyed getting up and going to work because I knew that each day that I put in the work, I was one step closer to my ultimate goal of being a warrant officer in my field. I was actually in the process of applying for an assignment that would give me a leg up on my competition, when life hit me like a brick wall!

I was thrown so far off of what I thought my purpose was that in the past five years, I have spent countless hours trying to simply recalibrate my life. I was given only one option and it wasn’t really an option, it was a mandate. I was getting retired. I was broken and could not be fixed. These were the words spoken to me by my doctor as I set in his office trying to convince him to reverse his recommendation. He told me, “Sgt. Lyons, your unit is not looking out for you. Constantly breaking your profile and trying to be a 100% soldier is going to have you crippled and bound to a wheelchair by the age of thirty and by the time that you get to that point, the Army is going to force you out. But I want to give you a chance to have a better quality of life”. His statement shook me to my core. Being wheelchair bound was not part of my plan, so I sucked it up and went through the process.

Fast forward five years, and my life has changed tremendously. I have two amazing kids, I have a full-time job, and I am almost at the end of my degree. A lot of people would say it seems like you have found your purpose, but I disagree. Yes, I am a mom, but that is not all that I am meant to be. I give my kids 100% of me and I am raising them to be healthy members of society, but if I attach my entire identity to being a mom, I am not fulfilling my own personal purpose. I am not saying that having children doesn’t give me drive or fulfill my life, but I am saying that they give me the drive to be the best me that I can be and that pushes me to want to do more.

I am very grateful for my job, and not to sound cocky, I am really good at my job. It gives me a reason to leave my house every day and when given the opportunity, I can accomplish quite a bit. The kicker is, I am helping achieve someone else’s purpose. I enjoy what I am doing, but I am not driven or challenged in the way that I was in the Army. I don’t feel like there are many things that I can strive to be in this job other than being the best I can be in my current position. It’s like there is an invisible glass ceiling and I can’t go any further than where I currently am. So what do I do?

The past few months I have thought about this more than a few times. I have made lists and even lists about those lists. Clearly, I just enjoy making lists. But, I have not figured out where I need to be or even what I am supposed to be doing. I have not had my “aha” moment where an idea just lights a fire in my soul. Wouldn’t it be nice if we just had an internal google assistant that could search our entire life and tell us our purpose? It would be great if the day we decide we want to start fulfilling our purpose, we could simply say, “hey Google, what’s my purpose?” and the little voice responded, “Tameka (or your name), your purpose is ______”. Since I don’t have that option right now, and I don’t believe it will come to fruition in the foreseeable future, I am going to take the time that I have now and invest in myself and the things that I am passionate about. Devoting more time working on the things that bring me joy will give me a chance to see if one of my passions doubles as my purpose. I can’t say that something that I currently do on the side won’t turn out to be the thing that gives me back my drive, but I also can’t say that it will. I am opening myself up to new opportunities and new ideas. I know what it feels like to have drive and a passion to get up every morning and work towards a goal, I just have to be more intentional about it now. I lost that drive for a long time because I wanted to be in the Army, but now I get a chance to find and do something even greater and I won’t simply let it pass me by because plan A didn’t work out for my life. That ended up being my plan and not God’s plan. When it is my time to go out and conquer the world, I know that I will be given that drive and passion and nothing will stop me. For now I will keep working on me and giving myself the opportunity to find fulfillment in what God has given me right now.

Life is just a series of weekends….

As I sit here writing this blog and watching my children sleep, I realized how many moments pass because I am so focused on the next day or activity. This week, I have found myself wishing it was the weekend. Trying to remember the details of what happened on Monday and Tuesday and realizing that I can’t! Partially because I suffer from mom brain and because I willed those days to go by so quickly because I have been in such a rush to get to Friday.

But, why? Why are my days and moments sped up just to get to another day? Why can’t I be present in the moments that I have right now? Big questions for 1 am, but here we are. Or here I am rather. My baby girl will be six months this month (insert actual tears here). Every day I say, “man time is flying by” or “why are you growing so fast”. Well duh, right? If I pray for every day to go by quickly just so I can get to the end of the week, of course she will be growing really quickly too! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put those pieces together. In my haste to be done with my work week, I am missing important moments in other aspects of my life!

Now I just want to slow down! I want to go backwards and catch every moment that I have missed in each area of my life. Talk about sensory overload! I know, it is impossible, but just really take a moment to think about that. What if you could go back to those stressful days that you wished would just hurry up and end already and just take advantage of every moment? Instead of rushing the day past, why not take a few minutes in that day and do some self-reflection or advancement? Listen to a podcast on making each moment count, think about a way to make yourself better in those moments instead of rushing them!

This is exactly what I need to do. From today forward, I refuse to be in a hurry to get to the next day. I am going to live in the present and not be so concerned about the next day. I want to make all of my time every single day count. It sounds sort of like a fairy tale. Cue the cute life is all butterflies and rainbows music, give me a beautiful dress, nice backdrop and of course some cute animal that sings with me and knows all of the moves to my little musical number. But why can’t it be that way? Why can’t we just take a second to be amazed at the fact that we get 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? That means that we have 10,080 minutes each week to take advantage of!

Take advantage of each one. Trust me, I get it. Sometimes work, school, or parenting can be challenging, but even those moments are worth it. If every day you danced in daisies and hid behind waterfalls, you would never truly be able to appreciate the moments that go well. Unless your job is to do those things and if so, just know how jealous I am of you. But, we can all look for those daisy dancing moments and take advantage of them. When you’re constantly rushing time, you miss those moments and so many more. Today, I am going to take a few deep breaths and just make these moments count. I mean, I am already down 2,880, so I need to make the most out of the rest of them!

I just need five minutes....

I never realized how important having a few minutes to myself was until I had kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending as much time with my kids as possible, but sometimes, mama needs time to just take two deep breaths in a quiet place. Growing up, I was always content just being by myself reading a book or doing homework (think kid who rides to the party with her sister and then spends the whole time reading in a corner). Yep, that was me.

Fast forward…..

here we are today, 2 kids in and the only time that I have alone is in the shower, and even that is questionable at times. There is nothing more relaxing than trying to soothe a crying baby and make sure your toddler doesn’t jump off the bed while trying to rinse soap off of your body. The past few months, I have found myself not even trying to find time for myself, I am talking not even attempting to close the glass shower door at this point.

Because I need silence to recharge so that I can be a functioning human being and a present mom for my kids, I find myself trying to recharge at 1 am when both kids are sleep (like right now). That doesn’t make for a very restful night of sleep, so for the past few weeks, I have been trying to find something that I could do to “pamper” myself. Sounds simple enough, right? Not really when you are looking for something that you can do in 5 minutes or less and that is simple enough that if both of your children start screaming at once, it doesn’t take 15 minutes to remove. Thank you, Nair!

I read a few mom blogs to try and get some ideas. I quickly realized that most of these women do not share the same lifestyle that I have and there is nothing wrong with that. I don’t have the option to go on 15-hour spa day. I mean in theory, it sounds like a dream, but I slowly have to shatter it and return to my reality which is that I can safely squeeze five minutes in for a “luxury” for myself. Insert all of the people reminding me that I am a still a woman and I have to put myself first and treat myself and all of the other amazing things that some women are able to do, but those are not realistic for me.

So why are we here?

So why are we here? Well, a couple of weeks ago, while I was looking for a planner on Amazon, I came across this really interesting lip scrub. It was called a Raw Sugar Lemon Lip Scrub (link below). I thought, hey why not try that. There is no such thing as having lips that are too soft, right? With that in mind, I added it to my cart and then I was recommended the matching lip balm (link below). Score! Of course, in good Amazon prime fashion, I ordered both items. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I figured It was worth a try.

I got both items in two days, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I have read some pretty mixed reviews about sugar scrubs. This one had a very nice smell and texture. It was not extremely oily or overly rough. The makers of this particular scrub did a great job ensuring that the scrub was the perfect mix of exfoliation and moisture. And the best part, it only took 5 minutes! It was the simplest thing I have ever done in my life. You simply take a small amount of the scrub and rub it on your lips. You can feel the dry skin melting away. Really you just rubbed it off, but why ruin the moment. One it had been on for about 5 minutes, I rinsed it off with water, patted my lips dry and then applied the most heavenly lip balm ever to my lips. Seriously, it was like a silk angel was dancing on my lips.

Aside from how awesome my lips felt, the most amazing part of this whole experience was that not one, but both of my children cooperated. It was like magic! No one was crying or calling my name for the entire five minutes. I finally had a second for myself. This may seem like a really small thing to most people, but for me, this was a big deal. In the past 3 years, I can count on one hand the number of times that I actually get to do something uninterrupted, but this is a game changer. This was like sunshine in a jar and it seemed like my kids understood that as well. Do you find yourself in need of five minutes alone or do you just want soft lips? You need to try this! I have used the sugar scrub four times and I use the lip balm on a daily basis. This combination has given me a little taste of freedom. I know, I know, it is only five minutes, but when you spend 9 to 10 hours at work and 24 hours being a full-time mom, five minutes can feel like an eternity.

Maybe a lip scrub isn’t for you, but find 5-minutes in your day uninterrupted and do something for yourself. Take a walk, write a poem, color a picture. Do something that makes you feel like a new (or more relaxed) person when it is over. If you are a mom, don’t feel guilty about needing a couple of minutes where no one is calling your name or tugging on your pants. It will help you get back some of the energy that you need to keep killing it as a mom, employee, wife, sister, or friend. You’ve got

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Every Morning, Make Your Bed

This week I spent most of my time making a list of things that I needed to do and then compiling lists of the things I needed to do to actually accomplish the items on my to-do list. Welcome to adulthood. Sounds exhausting, right? It is! As I tucked my kids into bed and tried to think through what I needed to accomplish before the weekend, I realized that I never feel like I am truly accomplishing anything. I am constantly just trying to make it to the next task, but never really allowing myself to start the next day with a clean slate. I am constantly letting each day spill into the next day.

No wonder why I never truly know what day of the week it is.

As I sat at the foot of my bed trying to decide what I want to wear tomorrow, I glanced back at my bed and realized how put together it seemed. The pillows were in the appropriate place, the blankets were all folded and tucked neatly and it looked finished. Why didn’t I feel that way? Every morning that there isn’t a tiny person bundled up in my covers, I make it a point to ensure that my bed looks put together. But why? Growing up, my mom would ensure that we made our bed every morning and I never knew why, it was just something that we did.  I am not expecting anyone to see it, so why do I feel like I still have to do it? These are questions I never really thought about, probably because they aren’t on my list of things to do. While I sat there on the edge of my bed, I was not sure why I was thinking about them at that very moment. And then it dawned on me, I needed an item that I can simply check off of my list each day. It is one thing that I know that I cannot fail at. Every morning, I get up knowing that I want to give everything and everyone in my life 100% and I know that I will fail at that because it is unrealistic, but yet and still, I put those expectations on myself every single morning and every evening, I come home knowing full well that I left something unfinished on my desk or that I was unable to give each of my kids my undivided attention each time my son called my name or my daughter cried.

I have a to-do list that never gets completely done for one reason or another, so I can never pat myself on the back and say “great job. You rocked the day”. But why do I have to finish everything just to feel good about the things that I did accomplish? Why do I not allow myself to celebrate each of the small things that I can do everyday? I am not superwoman, no matter how many blanket capes I wear for my son. Why is one item crossed off the list not enough? It is! If you have one hundred items on your list and you can complete two, you had a successful day. We have to stop comparing our lives to those around us. Just because someone else can wake up at 3am, go to the gym for 3 hours, head home, cook a 7-course breakfast for their spouse and kids, get dressed and make it to work before 8am, does not mean that you rolling out of bed at 6, grabbing Starbuck’s and making it to work at 0759 is not still an accomplishment for you.

You have to choose the small things that you know you can do each day and do them. If you want to walk one mile, get up and start moving. If you want to spend ten minutes by yourself, uninterrupted, put it on your to-do list, do it, and check it off. We make our daily tasks so daunting, that we are unknowingly setting ourselves up for failure. Instead of making a list with all of the things that you have to accomplish for the whole day or week, break your list up into tasks that you can accomplish within just the next hour or two and then when you accomplish them, give yourself time to celebrate that you got them done. Go all out, have a cookie if you want. Kids shouldn’t be the only ones rewarded for earning stickers on their charts. As adults, we have to find ways to give ourselves a little bit of grace. Many of you, like me, are juggling a lot of different roles and responsibilities and you have to give yourself a chance to begin and end each day feeling like you did something. Even when you have a long list of unfinished tasks that you have to leave for the next day. Find one or two things that you are committed to doing each day and DO THEM.

And don’t forget to make your bed 😊.