A thinking prompt

“The simplest questions are the most profound.

Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?

Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.”

-Richard Bach

I stumbled across this little prompt on a Blog I read, and it seemed perfect...I've been thinking about these things lately as well.

Specifically, I've been thinking about how I DOCUMENT things in my life like change, home, family, goals, and the past. I always think about these things as the seasons change, but it seems that this year the topic is especially fresh. I think that I have reached the stage in my grief for Tiny Man that I've started to really assess how he changed my life and how I live it.

I'm thinking about the change of seasons and how much HOME has come to mean to me. When I was "coming up" I never in a million years thought that I would be a homemaker. My mom did it all, raised us, worked, she and my dad built a house together, and she did such a good job. (Because he's reading...yeah, dad, you are great too, but not so much a female roll model, eh?) Anyway, I always thought I would do the same. I would work, raise kids, make a home. One of the first things I realized after making the decision to stay home with Tiny Man is that I would NEVER have been able to do it all. Some people can, and they do a marvelous job. It's just not in me. Part of it is the job, teaching, it is very demanding. Raising kids, obviously, is also very demanding. For the first time in my life I am starting to understand what it means to prioritize the big things, and realize what the big things are.

There are some cliche'd examples of recognizing the "big things" in our lives. My favorite has always been the idea of rocks in a jar....if you have several rocks to put in a jar, put the big ones in first, they determine what else will fit...then move on to the smaller rocks (which fit in between the larger ones) and the sand to fill in the cracks. When we're younger we hear things like this and it never sinks in...part of that whole "invincible" thing, I guess.

What I've realized is that for me, success in life means not doing everything, but doing the things that I choose to do really really well. To me, that means that I can't do too much at one time.

I still struggle with the decision to leave work and stay at home. There are days I question if what I'm doing matters. But when I get a glimpse of what really makes me happy, what really makes me tick, I see that this choice is the only one that makes sense for me.