What you do when you wake up...

What you do when you wake up.

Mattie is my profound thinker. Her ability to ever so innocently insert deeper meanings into simplicity never ceases to amaze me. Her mind usually works more like her daddy’s in its ability to think abstractly, and this often leaves me in giggling amazement.

Our conversation today (out of NOWHERE):
Mattie: “Mommy, how do you fall in love?”
Me: L-o-n-g p-a-u-s-e… I shake my head for a moment. “Mattie,” I sigh… …Still searching for the words to explain such a concept to a 5 year old… “Well… You meet someone, and you become friends, and you start to like them, and you get to know them really good, and you spend lots of time together, and then after a long time you might fall in love with them and get married!” Simple enough for a 5 year old, but complex enough that she feels that she has received an adequate answer, I am hoping…
Mattie: “So, what do you do when you wake up?!”
I am taken aback by the statement, funny as it is, how true is it?! Where it came from I have no clue. My mind races back and forth between the irony of the statement and where she came up with the idea that you are a sleep when you fall in love from my answer…
My response was “You are usually awake when you fall in love…” And the response worked. But as I got ready for bed my mind went back to our innocent conversation. Hind sight is always 20/20. And this fact usually leaves me frustrated. *Hold that thought* So given the chance to re-respond, and given the opportunity to be having this conversation with her another twelve years from now, I would have said something like this…
“You wake up. And he’ll wake up too. And there will be days where you both think ‘what have I done?’ But you stick it out, cause that’s what you vowed to God and each other to do. And the promise for happiness wasn’t anywhere in those vows. It was ‘for better or worse,’ and worse will come. And it will go too. And happiness will do the same. Luckily, although we call it “falling” in love, it’s really not falling at all. Love is a choice- it’s not a feeling. It’s not the warm fuzzys that make you smile every time you think about him. It’s an action that you chose to do. If someone says that they “fell out of love,” don’t be fooled into thinking it “just happened,” they made the decision that it was too much work to continue to love the imperfect person they chose and are now through. But let me tell you, the best years of your life will be the ones where you learn to stop focusing on yourself. This life is not about ‘me,’ despite what our culture leads us to believe. We are part of something greater, and God cares far more about our character than our comfort. And if one thing is for sure, He will allow you to go through uncomfortable times. But it’s to build you and grow you both as individuals and together as a couple. If you never knew pain, you would never know to pray for comfort, if you never knew hard times, you would never know to pray for provision. So when you wake up, you pray. You stick it out, because you said that you would. And excuses aren’t acceptable. You fell in love with an imperfect person, and they did the same. Hurt will come. Heartaches happen. Hard times are a part of life. But you cling to each other and God. You don’t run from issues or problems. You face them head on together. You are a team, and divorce really is a 4-letter word. Whatever you do, don’t look to society for advice or approval. They don’t have the same standards that we are held too. And I say this not at all because I am perfect, but because I know from experience. Things that are good are worth fighting for, and you just may have to do that at some point. So, just know baby girl, when you wake up God has your path ready for you with all the grace and provision you will need, and we will always have your back and will be behind you every step of your journey.”

So back to my *hold that thought* moment… Hind sight is always 20/20, but I was actually allowed to get this 20/20 vision a few years early. For now my explanation of falling in love worked for my child who still believes in fairy tales, but when we revisit this topic later in her life, I’ll be slightly more prepared with what to tell her about what to do when you “wake up” after falling in love.

My Picture of a Perfect Mother's Day Weekend

And for a moment it’s perfect. Peaceful. Calm. The windows and doors are open and a cool breeze is blowing through. The birds are singing and the girls are playing well together and the only sound outside of the wind and birds is laughter. I love this time of year, however short it may be. The beautiful weather allows my home to expand from the 1800 sq ft 3 bedroom, two bath into a much larger 2 ½ acre home. The indoors and the outdoors have no limits and seem to mingle in a way that erases the walls that actually surround us. I can count the number of times that I have had to close off the outdoor world and turn on the air-conditioner this year on just one hand. I have learned that as long as the wind is blowing and the fans are on, I can tolerate the warmer temps. The trees that shade our house and yard do an incredible job at keeping it cool. The girls live outside. Today the horses are grazing in the yard so the girls are playing in the pasture. They decided to walk to the back and explore the old red barn that is home to lots of wild little critters. For whatever reason, our oldest is carrying the youngest. The weenie dog sees the opportunity to find trouble and runs quickly to catch up. Their exploration is quick; very short lived. They return quite certain that it’s haunted. “Not haunted, just old and creaky,” I assure them. The explanation makes sense and they go back to play in the sand that used to be a volleyball court. Sand castles, villages, and countries keep them busy most of the morning. I can’t help but think how nice this moment is. I watch them run and play through the pasture and for a moment I miss being 5. No, maybe not. Maybe watching them be children is better than being a child again… A sand fight breaks out and the peace and beauty is broken. It was bound to happen, of course. Imperfection is what makes moments of perfection so great. You have to catch them when they happen, and enjoy them while they last because you know they are short lived and sometimes few and far between. But for a moment, our little world was perfect, and I have captured a beautiful picture in my mind that will always hold that moment of perfection.
And this is just one of the reasons that “mommy” is one of my favorite titles I wear.

Just to vent…

Nothing stresses me out more than money… Especially people taking my money. So when I logged onto my bank acct and saw a much lower balance than I expected, my heart stopped. Upon closer inspection my bank had assigned $140 in overdraft charges. FOR WHAT?! I caught myself screaming… Upon even closer inspection, it was for nothing. My bank account had not gone negative, not one single time. And I am being charged 5 overdraft fees?!?! If I wanted to spend $140, I could have found LOTS of ways to do it, a payment to my bank for nothing is not one of them. So I made a call… Very mad. Ready to switch banks. Again. But I calmly say “Yes maam, I was just charged $140 in OD fees. Can you tell me what those charges are for?” So after the exchange of lots of personal information to verify that I was not calling pissed that someone else’s account had been charged $140 in insane charges, she begins to look. And look. And a few moments into her looking she responds, “Do you mind if I put you on hold for a moment?” “Of course,” I respond, knowing that this is a good sign. Several minutes pass before she comes back on. Finally she picks up and says that the charges that were assigned the fees were a $40 ATM withdrawal, a $5 debt, a $7 debit, and a few other very small charges(as she reads them off I am adding up what each item ended up costing). She states that none of these charges ever made the account go negative, (really?! As if this was news to me…). She then gives some explanation for the error such as “a merchant may have double charged, or over charged, or a larger amount was being held at the time the charges were made and since then that charge has “fallen off” as they call it. So what she can do is refund the amount to my account for me. AS IF SHE IS DOING ME A FAVOR… To which I reply “Yes. Please do. Thank you.” Both she and I know that her excuse is lame. I can log on and see holds on my account that have not yet gone through. I know exactly how much I am being charged by each merchant. I have seen merchants double charge on accident to my account before. I have also seen my bank catch that error immediately. I actually had a merchants refund go through and post on my account BEFORE these charges were made, and the refund alone was enough to cover all the charges… And, no, those were the only pending charges. There was nothing “larger” that fell off. But, maybe it was an honest mistake. A computer glitch, we shall say. After all, nothing is error proof. All I know is when an error is made in my favor it is quickly caught by them. When it’s made in their favor, it would go totally unnoticed. Such as the time that they deposited our paycheck in the “wrong account.” Oh, wait- that happened twice. And one of the times, they couldn’t find what account it had been put into until Monday. They weren’t even sure of who had deposited it and seemed slightly panicked. “What is the name of the teller on your slip? What branch was it?!” I could hear the worry in their voices… “I will not be charged any OD fee for any charge if my account goes negative while you find my check, and I will be paying bills and shopping this weekend,” was my warning that time. And they did refund any fees that I got that weekend. And there was the time that they forgot to give me my cash back that I requested when I made my deposit. I noticed it several hours later. They did that to my mom too… There are other things that they have done too. They have just slipped my mind. I log on this am and the $140 charge has gone through. I call again. I am reassured that within 30 minutes I will see the refund. Ugh. When the system works, it works. When it doesn’t, they have control of your money… What can you do?... I almost asked for interest. But since it wouldn’t have been much for them holding $140 for a day I didn’t waste my time… The credit has finally gone through and I feel marginally better. Until the next mistake. All I know is don’t mess with my money. It’s a good way to get me really mad. And if you don’t fix it, my response is always the same “No, thank you. I’ll just wait til my husband gets home and let him handle it. He ALWAYS gets what he wants.” And 9.5 times out of 10, he does… ;)