The Battle with the Insurmountable

I guess I should have actually done more on my list yesterday; I maybe wouldn't have been so overwhelmed today. Do you ever feel like you have insurmountable tasks ahead of you? If so, please share. Sometimes it seems like I am the only one who feels the crush of so many obligations.

But wait, didn't I just have cancer a year ago? Didn't I just say how silly some of these things I used to worry about were? Yes...

But it's also FUN to worry about some of these little things, too...that's the thing. There is a joy in being so normal, and the rewards of all of these tasks are definitely so real.

I love the feeling of a clean house! I also love cleaning my house...I love it when my horrifically old carpets feel clean. I LOVE looking at my garden and seeing the results of my labor...I love thinking about the renovations we have done in our heinous house. I LOVE seeing my children do well in school, or in their activities...I LOVE exercising, and the release of emotion it brings to me.

BUT....

I don't love it when my house is insurmountably messy! I don't love my carpets, no matter how much I clean them. I DO NOT love thinking of my 1 full acre of buckthorn and weeds and heavy, compacted clay soil...which I have to labor over to make those gardens. I DO NOT love arguing with my children to bring them to practices, or to work with them on their school work...and I do NOT love trying to fit in enough exercise on a day that already seems so super full.

So today...I have all of these things swarming around in my mind, plus packing for Mackinac (packing always throws me into a full fledged panic attack...) That = the Insurmountable feeling.

Last night, though, as I was beginning the battle with the Insurmountable -and thus, wasting my time watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Charlie's Angels, and a horrible other show called Royal Pain - (all on Hulu...mind you, I have NEVER ONCE seen these shows in my life, so why last night, when I should have been either sleeping or starting to make the Insurmountable less so?) I had a thought. I was sore from having torn out a bunch of buckthorn, and a little frustrated that the hours of work looked like nothing in the sea of weeds that is my yard.

Someday, I am going to look up and it will all be gone. I'll look for the next buckthorn, and it won't be there. It's that little plant here, and that little plant there...lots of pulling and lots of soreness, and lots of days and hours, lots of little steps, all done without much initial satisfaction. But someday, all those little steps will have done something so enormous - will have transformed my whole yard, and my life, along the way.

And so it is with the heinous house and it's renovation...and even the smaller battles with the carpets and the cleaning, and the packing...and the largest battle of all - parenthood. Little steps, each day...transforming my whole life.

I guess it is time to get started!