"I want to be 20 again. I want to be slender again. I want these stretch marks to go away. I don't want my life to be endless wanderings through grocery and department stores buying whatever the family need of the moment is."
In trying to come up with an idea for my blog entry, I flipped through my journal and found this entry that I made about a year ago (March 7, 2007) . Page after page in my journal speaks of discontent and a struggle to get through the routine, sometimes boring things that must be done day to day. Anger is expressed at God in all this discontentment.
Now one year later, I am celebrating another birthday (43 this time on Feb 11) and my entries are much more hopeful, such a contrast. The funny thing is my circumstances haven't changed that much...in some ways they have gotten worse if you were to look at me from the outside. I still have stretch marks and I still find myself in grocery and department stores trying to remember what I am there for. The new struggles include my husband's search for a job and some health problem.
But now my entries are more hopeful. Nothing magic has happened and this is not a how-to find the joy of the Lord article because I am not quite sure how I got here. I remember praying against my pessimism, the glass half empty mentality that seems to be so much a part of me. I discovered two books that renewed my faith---Girl Meets God and C.S. Lewis The Problem of Pain. And I trusted God to provide finances from my daughter's trip to Washington D.C. She has fundraised all the money she needed and I have been amazed by her work ethic, the support of the church and community and the generosity of relatives.
All this is just to say that there is incredible value in keeping a journal and even more value in revisting old entries to see the changes in attitude. When I read the entry that whined about stretch marks etc. I had a moment of thinking that someone else had put an entry in my journal and in a way someone had.
Sharon Dunn's newest humorous who-dun-it is titled Death of a Six Foot Teddy Bear, book two in the Bargain Hunters mysteries. You can read more about Sharon and her books at www.sharondunnbooks.com.
I know what you mean about wanting to be twenty. I just turned thirty, but I didn't feel that old until my little sister came and stayed with us. I'm, like, totally boring;) But I'm happy. And that's what counts, right?
Posted by: Angela Meuser | February 18, 2008 at 04:13 PM
I will be forty two on Saturday. No, I would not want to be twenty again, just wish I would have finished my college degree then.
But the trade off is my three girls and the many years of knowledge of parenting.
Posted by: Amy | February 19, 2008 at 08:31 PM