My Top Five Reasons to Sparkle This Year

My Top Five Reasons to Sparkle This Year

1. My Own Health - If I had one wish I would wish for my kids and family, it’s to take care of themselves along the way while you live life. Personally I think your days are numbered, but how you take care of yourself can impact how healthy you live out those days. You hear Dr. Phil, and so many counselors, preach to always keep yourself healthy you must “take care of yourself first.” For many in my generation, we were taught to always think of your elders first. We didn’t like that as kids so we adjusted that so far that it was all about the kids, to the point of actually hurting ourselves. Hopefully today’s parents have it just right. Putting myself first, still pulls some guilt up to say that, but I’m going to try it for this year and see how that works for me since I’ve been listening when Dr. Phil says, “How’s that past been workin for ya?”


2. God wants it for me. Whenever things are hard, you’d think I would go towards something that makes me feel better…and I do eventually, but first I run away from God and stay away from church. I don’t even say my prayers regularly, and the more time goes by the less I feel worthy to show up on his door step a mess again…. but eventually I do. When he lets me back in he always seems to show me a grander plan than I had on my own but only after I’ve wandered awhile. Kind of like when you’re a parent and your child runs off in a store. You watch protectively and hope they learn a lesson when they realize they are lost.
When Brendon was little he made a pin in Sunday school that says, “Never Run Away From God”. The pin managed to stay in a safe place and even made its way to Phoenix when we moved. I have it by the kitchen door, and admire it often. You know what they say about “out of the mouths of babes”.


3. My husband. Kerry and I have always been like oil and water one minute, and madly in love the next. The kids would tell you while they were growing up,  we were either screaming and fighting or snuggled up on the couch. The last few years the oil and water part is still there - but the madly in love has been… ehhh not so much. As the songs on my I pod played through on my walk the other day Paul Overstreet came on. He was singing A Long Line of Love. It goes, “when times get rough we don’t give up... forever’s in my heart and in my blood, yes, we come from a long line of love”. Kerry hates Paul Overstreet, he calls his music “candy ass”, so I snickered when I thought of that but, teared up at the sentiment of it. Most older couples who kept the knot tied will tell you, there have been times during their marriage that they wondered if they’d make it through the rough times and there will be rough times if you're married long enough.
      I am proud of myself for sticking with it, and proud of Kerry for sticking with it because it would have been easier to walk away, and probably still would be at times with this distance thing. However, I hope we can always love each other, be the kind of companions that share a bond that you can count on to the end. Long marriages are rare these days; nearly extinct. Kerry and I both need to accept where we are now, realize that our marriage today is different than what it was, learn to be kinder and be the couple that’s right for us, not what or where the world thinks we should be.

　

4. My Kids. Anyone that knows me, knows my kids are my world. From the time I knew I was going to be a mother, I knew what I was here to do. We have our warts and moles like all families, but I know that all three of the kids would say I have always been there for them and loved them above all else, probably too much, if anything. You can lose your own life in them, and I have been good at that.
    Brendon’s one of the most sensitive men I know and I can tell him anything. I admire him so much for the way he’s played the hand he’s been dealt which is a tough one.
Shelbey is just so easy to be around, kind and always looking out for others. She's so good to me. Sydney is my soul sister. We are really close and two of the same, so that makes for love and WAR but its all love in the end.

5.  My sisters. My older sister Marcy has lived here her whole adult life. She was fourteen when I was born, and my second Mom. She takes on my problems like  a Mom would. I can tell her something in the evening, and by morning she has an idea for me... because she cares that much. She’s somebody I’d choose for a friend even if she wasn’t my sister. Marcy has four beautiful daughters inside and out. They have included me in their lives since I came here and I don’t know what I would have done without them and their families. I even get to go to all the birthday parties and enjoy being able to see them often.
     I have already written about Kathy previously. She and I were only eighteen months apart and as different as night and day. We shared the same life at home, because we were so far behind the other two kids. We have a unique bond to have been there since the beginning.  She means the world to me as does her family.
     I also had a brother who was died as a result of a car accident and he has two daughters that are very important to me.

　

That’s my top five. I have a lot of aquaintences, and a few good friends as well, that give me reason to be a better me.  I don’t know if one should need any reasons to push yourself toward your best self but it doesn’t come naturally for me. Instead, I guess I like to wonder around the store, lost, till I’m in trouble.