Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Heavy thoughts

Attending a funeral and spending hours in the car this past weekend gave me some time for serious thought.
Life has been a little — or, a lot — frantic and stressful in recent weeks. I haven't been getting enough sleep, keeping up with chores around the house, eating as well as I should or treating people around me as nice as I should.
The eulogy at this past weekend's funeral celebrated a man who most will remember for his niceness, his loving and religious nature. It's hard to listen to praises like those, combine it with thoughts about the eventual end of life and not wonder what you're setting yourself up to be remembered for in life. Especially living in a place where I don't have a lot of close friends, I wonder what impression I leave on people. At work I am efficient with my time, almost to a fault... so I'm not likely to be walking around the room joking with co-workers at their desks. Does this make me seem unfriendly? And at home I worry that too much of the time I'm only giving half-attention to Ellie or Brian as I make mental lists of all the other things I need to get done for work and home. I definitely multitask too much... but it seems like the to-do list in my life is always getting longer, and not the other way around.
I'm not an outwardly religious person. I believe in God and heaven, attend church and pray for family and friends. But when I sit back and take stock of the way I'm living, it's easy to see that I need to put more of the concepts of my faith into practice. I need to try to quell more mean thoughts. I need to be less selfish with my time and resources. Above all, I need to have more faith and worry less. That's what it really comes down to if I want to be a good mom, wife, daughter, sister, etc.
I find myself often straddling two extreme outlooks on life. On one hand, I want to hold on to everything I love too tightly because I've never gotten over having my dad ripped out of my life. (Is it even possible?) On the other hand, knowing that life can be too short makes me want to live every moment to the fullest and throw caution to the wind.
I'm sure neither of those is the "right" way to live... but I have trouble finding middle ground. I guess the best I can do it start fresh each day with good intentions and try to stick with them. Hopefully that will mean less senseless bickering between me and Brian and more tender moments with everyone I love.

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