Mundane Monday McBlog #4

I don't really have anything to write about. That is why I named my Monday blog Mundane. My head is always a little foggy on Monday. I'm not sure why because in my work week Mondays are Thursdays. Maybe it's because the boys have real weekends while I work them and it is their Monday, which means I'm here alone for the first time in a couple of days and just want to sit and luxuriate in the sound of silence. Well, my house is never silent with the chattering, caged, feathered things out in the living room, but silent in the way that there are not a bunch of young men wandering in and out of the house.
Today I am tired and still feeling a little confused about something that I can't figure out. For one thing, I realize that February is almost over and I can't figure out how to slow time down. My work week goes really fast because my Mondays are on Friday and the weekends are our busy time. The week just disappears, almost before it begins and then it is my days off again. I love my schedule for that, but I wish things could slow down just a bit. I feel like I need to catch a breath of air.
I hate having to censor myself when I write and I'm thinking I should start a private journal, just for me. I could do this on paper, but I'm much faster at typing and even paper can be found and read, so I'd rather journal things out in a blog. Apparently I've written something somewhere that is bothering someone and I can't figure out where. But it has made me realize that often I don't say what I really want to say about some things. I try to be sensitive about things and I have just figured out that I really don't stand up for myself like I should. I'm so tired.
I don't understand what happened to the world. Well, I understand it a little, but I don't get why so many things are tolerated these days and why people are so mean and selfish.
One thing I want to say is that I can't go back and undo choices I've made in my life in the past. Those choices, good or bad, were the choices I made at the time and they cannot be undone. I can only go on, learn from it somehow and continue in what is hopefully a better vein. (rut, path, whatever you want to call it.)
I shouldn't have to apologize for being me. I am who I am and I like who I am. It's a sorry state of affairs to me that I am not good enough to be included in some people's lives just because I don't choose a lifestyle of snobbery and riches and thinking I'm better than others less fortunate than I am. I was raised by my mom who taught me that "There but for the grace of God, go I." It was a powerful lesson and it taught me to realize that life can change for any of us at any time. We really don't know what is in store. We really can't control the outcome of everything we do. We really need to learn to live and let live and try to understand the people that are different from us. Different is not bad, it's just different.
Unfortunately it does not seem as if I was able to impart that same lesson to all of my children. I did the best job I could do as a parent. I was often overwhelmed and underfunded and in the middle of relationships that didn't quite turn out how I expected. I was promised love, faithfulness and forever. Unless the definitions have changed, that is not what I got. I tried to keep my children's lives on an even keel, even through all of the chaos that often ensued. I tried to instill values and morals and gave them lots of love, but I guess that wasn't good enough for some of them. I'm just not good enough for some of them. I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable. I don't live in a shiny new house with shiny new furniture and all the proper furnishings and decorations. Gee, I don't know. Raising seven kids mostly on my own, somehow impacted my budget.
I like fixer houses. I didn't know it was a crime. I didn't realize that by living in a house that isn't finished I was limiting my relationships with some of my kids who are too embarrassed to bring their significant others home to meet me. I'm tired of being made to feel like a second class citizen because I don't care for drapes and don't have carpeting and can't keep up with the yard like I used to do. I still have a lot of work to do on my house and that is mostly because I had kids. Raising seven kids doesn't give you a lot of time or money to do all the things you want to do. Now that they are mostly grown and I have a little more time and money, I am finally getting a lot of things done that have been waiting on the back burner. I still have to pace myself, though. I am not going to go deep into debt just to make my house perfect so that the "perfect" children can feel comfortable sharing me with their significant others. I'm not going to apologize for not being rich and not wanting the same things as everyone else. I'm happy in my life and my home. It's not perfect, but it's mine and I enjoy the process of changing it and fixing it and working on it. I'm old now and I can't do all the things I used to do with the speed I used to do them. I don't have as much strength as I used to have. I have learned to work around it and I still enjoy what I'm doing, so I'm ok with me. I'm sorry that others are not. I thought love was about love. I didn't realize that it was about keeping up with the Joneses. If I'm not good enough, then so be it. Such a sad way to be.
So I guess I had a lot more to write about than I thought.