Cool Versus Crazy-Cray, Life in Pieces, & the Empty Nest

(Meme by Plumb)

          Similar to the woman in Luke 15:8, searching for her lost silver coin. She added light to her search, like I grab a flashlight to spot a valued lost item. She swept the house, not for the purpose of cleaning, but for finding. She probably got down on her hands and knees, and the by-product of her thorough search was clean floors. Clean floors happened, but, that wasn't the goal. She needed to find her found. Her valuable silver coin.
         Connection with others is like that coin. Most valuable. Connecting with Jesus, as well as with our children and grandchildren, is more prized than the woman's silver coin. Connection is messy, but it ultimately puts the pieces of our scattered lives together. It takes time; it makes us vulnerable; it cannot be forced. 
          Today, through "Finding my Found," I am a tolerant, salt-and-pepper, or silver-&-gold, housekeeper, especially when with my grandchildren. Maybe it is the difference between cool versus crazy-cray empty-nesters. Cool embraces a larger perspective that marries with an intentional, pre-determined mindset. To understand that it is inevitable. The Life-in-Pieces that young families face. They have clutter. Including my "perfect" daughter. I am supportive and encouraging of her as we attempt to balance helping and enmeshment balanced with connection.
          I have young mom memories that today could make me into an obsessive clean freak. They include our pastor's surprise visit investigating our mold-infested parsonage bathroom on Monday morning with a toy-filled living room. And one of our younger guest's dust-scrawled "Thank You" onto my child's bedroom mirror. In other words, I helped friends feel good about their own housekeeping skills.
          Our empty-nester home is no longer "In Pieces." We have moved past that life phase, and I embrace helpful organization. Our surroundings stay fairly tidy after being straightened, unless I'm on a crafting or silver-&-gold re-organization binge. I have time to every so often disinfect and maybe even dust. But, any time our long-distance daughter's little ones want to visit, they are more than welcome to be our tumbling tumble weeds, and they might even add (accidental) character marks and untidiness to our orderly home.
       My disjointed family heritage had heated generational divides and hurt feelings over disarray and unmet expectations. To the extent that mother/daughter visits between my grandmother and mom were close to nil. I lacked having even one steady grandparent in my life, tolerant or otherwise, and I pray to learn a healthy balance from my disheartened heritage.
        Because I had no steady grandparental connection in my childhood, in Finding my Found I realized the void created by that disconnect. I especially welcome invites to my daughter's starter rental. Sporadically, for just a few nights and days of our lives, who cares about strewn toys, spilled food, nasty morning diapers, foul breath, and eye boogers. And, creative sleeping arrangements. Cool.versus.crazy-cray. I enter into their world and choose to chill (stay Grandma Moana "cool").

        This idea may not be for every grandparent. In fact, it is not for the starchy, nor for the faint-of-heart. Beware of toys on the floor (watch your step), embrace using either unbreakable or paper plates, and heed to potty-training puddles and floods. And, note the emphasis in the previous paragraph's two key words: invites and a few days (except stay longer for a baby's birth).
         Especially for empty-nesters, being 24/7 with young children and babies can be quite unsettling at times. Keep the critical lips zipped. After a time, if your input is wanted, they will ask. Overall, whether or not we like it, those disordered, Life-in-Pieces together-times do help to keep us all young-at-heart.
         Developing connection includes patience and hard work. And, we might even need to get down-and-dirty, on our hands and knees... for playing and for praying.

Cherishing.Genuine.24/7

DeRachel

My Cup Overflows (Psalm 23)

Caution: Watch your step for toys

            This is an embarrassingly candid story shared for young mothers who feel like failures. They are learning that being a supermom is unattainable. In other words, they can’t change a million diapers a day, wipe up endless food spills, wash mega-loads of laundry, happily survive on meager precious minutes of sleep each night, and re-gather the same toys endless times a week. Or, maybe even work outside the home and do it all. AND expect a tidy home.

I raised two normal children, and my daughter now has children of her own. Mine were energetic, created messes, and surprise, for some reason needed food at least three times a day. We were associate pastors at a church, and lived in their 50+ year-old parsonage next door. It was a normal, stay-at-home day. One day ran into the next. I hadn’t straightened the house nor had I dusted in way too long.

Our messy living room had the regular array of strewn toys. The shared family bathroom was its usual undesirable self. It never looked good, mainly because it was tiny with centuries-old, wall-to-wall, yucky shag carpeting. If two people were in the bathroom, there was barely space to turn around.

A knock at the front door caught my attention. Empty-nester, 50-year-old Pastor Richardson, with his always meticulously plastered-into-place [evangelist] hairstyle and perfectly pressed and starched attire said, “Hi, Diane. I hope you don’t mind, but Homer and I have come to check out the master bathroom.”

Don't misunderstand me. I respected our pastor/boss. But at that moment, compared to his polished appearance, I felt small and very scuzzy. As my jaw and my pride dropped to the floor and were sucked into the dank and creepy crawlspace below, my inside-out feelings were many and varied: Mind? Of course I mind. Just 30 or even 15 minutes of heads-up would have provided time to at least create a path to the bathroom, clean the toilet, and put on make-up (young mothers master the art of fast multi-tasking).

As they entered, I zipped my mouth and probably turned 10 shades of red. Why didn’t they give me fair warning they were coming? They had to walk through our strewn living room and the master bedroom to reach the bathroom, plus they were able to see my son’s cyclone bedroom from what was our shared bathroom. And, to top off the embarrassment, they pried up the gross carpet and discovered bad things growing underneath. This is a crude illustration, but it felt like I was at a social function apologizing for keeping my hand stuck down my pants. The bathroom was downright unhealthy.
            What did the pastor tell his wife? And, most importantly, did I expose my poor children to dangerous germs? That event is permanently stored into long-term memory, now filed under tolerance, and can never be bleached out. Along with other untidy memories. Like the youthful guest who mischievously scrawled "Thank You" into our son's meta-dusty dresser mirror, equivalent to a dirty car's "Wash Me" (you know who you are TF).
            We all survived through dustiness and even germs. All that to say seasons come and seasons go. This, too, shall pass, young moms. Enjoy the journey. And: "Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff," because children do put their hands down their pants.

OC-ers (guilty, in spurts) and OCD-ers:  Embrace Psalm 23