My DC bedside table
Self-help Books for the Win
If you know me, you know I actually LOVE a self-help type book.
I’ve read a lot of books that make me think and think hard. And each one has taught me something or made me realize something about myself or my life or opened my eyes to other people’s lives. Because life is hard for everyone!
Everyone struggles. And everyone has hurdles to jump over and things to overcome. Every human hurts.
Untamed
I am just finishing up Untamed by Glennon Doyle. While reading myself saying “YES!” or shedding a tear on every other page. She gets life. She gets women and moms. She gets MY life.
I read a lot in the bathtub which might be TMI, but it’s true. And a bath is a total getaway for me. When I read this on pages 92-93 I sobbed. I sobbed right in the bathtub.
What We Do
“We hurt people, and we are hurt by people. We feel left out, envious, not good enough, sick, and tired. We have unrealized dreams and deep regret. We are certain that we were meant for more and that we don’t even deserve what we have. We feel ecstatic and then numb. We wish our parents had done better by us. We wish we could do better by our children. We betray and we are betrayed. We lie and we are lied too. We say good-bye to animals, to places, to people we cannot live without. We are so afraid of dying. Also: of living. We have fallen in love and out of love, and people have fallen in love and out of love with us. We wonder if what happened to us that night will mean we can never be touched again without fear. We live with rage bubbling. We are sweaty, bloated, gassy, oily. We love our children. We are at war with our bodies, our minds, our souls. We are at war with one another. We wish we’d said all those things while they were still here. They’re still here, and we’re still not saying those things. We know we won’t. We don’t understand ourselves. We don’t understand why we hurt those we love. We want to be forgiven. We cannot forgive. We don’t understand God. We believe. We absolutely do not believe. We are lonely. We want to be left alone. We want to belong. We want to be loved. We want to be loved. We want to be loved.”
And that to me sums up life. The good, the bad, the easy and the hard. But it all comes down to wanting to be loved and feeling loved.
I try hard to live my life with love in my heart, but I certainly fail at times.
Further down on the page, Glennon writes, “Being human is not hard because because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right.”
Live with Grace
Life is hard. Being a mom (even to young adults) is hard. I think we sometimes need to remember that everyone is leading a hard life. We don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors and we should give people the grace we want them to give us.
Because at the end of the day we all just want to be loved.
We’ve got this mamas!
