Lizzie Gets Real. Brace Yourselves.

I love it when I discover new bloggy treasures. This week I 'met' Stefne Miller via a call out on Conversion Diary but it was this post a couple of days back that really sealed the deal for me.

So in the spirit of faithful sisterhood and, at the very least, in order to provide future Twitter-fodder, I give you my own 'Lizzie Gets Raw' list.

• Sometimes when Jay gets home from school and fusses and moans and whinges his way through the afternoon for no apparent reason other than he wants to make his presence felt, I take myself quietly off into the ensuite, lock the door, and bawl my eyes out in a Grade A Ugly Cry. I do my own fussing and selfish whining, the whole nine yards of 'Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?', and then I dry my eyes, stick a tissue in my pocket to catch the nose drips, and walk out calmly to finish fixing snacks. Nobody in my family knows how much I cry, especially over Jay. My heart just gets so sore and heavy sometimes.
  
  
• Sometimes I look back over my life, and wonder what in the heck happened to the person I used to be. I used to have focus and direction. Now, not so much.
  
  
• I yell at my children. Not all the time....but I yell.
  
  
• I swear on occasion. Not all the time...but I swear.
  
  
• I no longer recognise nor like my own body and feel powerless to stop the avalanche of time and society's expectations about what it should look like. Sometimes I care, and sometimes I don't, but the times I don't? I'd rather not feel like a total loser for not knowing anything about makeup or haircare, thankyouverymuch.
  
  
• I do not give my best to my husband. A lot of the time he gets the 'leftovers' of me.
  
  
• I am sometimes resentful that I sometimes get the leftovers of him too. And then I feel guilty because he works full time and I 'don't work'. And then I start to hate Tiger Woods for hawking a Playstation game that steals away the precious leftover time we do have. And then I feel guilty because my poor husband needs to unwind from a (very) stressful and (occasionally) dangerous profession and who the heck am I to deny his quest for a virtual hole-in-one? And then I realise I'm talking in circles and my head explodes. Sigh.
  
  
• I am CONSTANTLY behind on housework, which bothers my husband, and makes me feel like a speck of dirt. Which incidentally, I don't even notice is there (I'm messy, he's not).
  
  
• I don't feel like anyone is truly proud of me.
  
  
• I don't feel like I do much to warrant the pride anyway.
  
  
• I want to read the bible daily but don't.
  
  
• I want to go to church but don't know how to start (it's harder than you think when you spend 27 years as an atheist and are married to the same). I have been to exactly one non-funeral church service in my life, and didn't much like it. Reeked of rote recitation to me. If I go again, I have a laundry list of what I'd like to get out of it. I realise that's wrong but I still want it according to my own terms.
  
  
• I am scared to think what an about-face on faith would look like to outsiders, namely family (none of whom are Christian), so I don't talk about it. I barely even blog about it.
  
  
• I have a keen sense of social justice but when push comes to shove, I sometimes hold back on exercising it.
  
  
• I have no fashion sense WHATSOEVER and actually think most fashion trends are a waste of time and money. If I had $50 to spend, I would buy books, not clothes. This extends to jewelery. I'd rather 'mad money' than sparkly things. This is one area that gets Talented Hubby a free pass.
  
  
• I don't wear my wedding or engagement rings but it's not because I don't want to. It's because I've gained some weight in the last few years and they no longer fit, and I don't want to tell Hubs the real reason because we've already had them resized twice - once bigger and once smaller - pre and post pregnancies. I no longer have the excuse of 'baby weight sausage fingers' to fall back on.
  
  
• I don't have super-close friends. I'd like to, but I find it hard to establish friendships.
  
  
• I would love more children, despite things being, uh, 'taken care of' so that doesn't happen. If the decision was made to 'un-take-care-of' things, I would be thrilled. THRILLED.
  
  
• I crave the respect and admiration of my husband but I'm not entirely sure I get it. I want him to wake up and say 'Daggum it, she chose me?' but I still think of it in terms of a works-based theology - if I just do this, clean that, be there for that thing...and then when I fail in those things, it doesn't bode well for one's emotional footing.
  
  
• I waste time on the internet every single day. That's right, I said WASTE. But I don't want to stop.
  
  
• I fight God with every step and breath I take. I ignore, bend, or gloss-over the rules all the time. I still wonder why He puts up with it. I have changed a lot, but I still find myself reverting back to my old way of thinking whenever the excrement hits the oscillating air-moving device. I sincerely have no idea how to bridge this gap.
  
  
• It bothers me that my husband isn't more open to matters of faith, and I don't mean regarding his own (or not) ideas on faith (that's his own journey to take, if he ever decides to set off on it, and that's highly unlikely), I mean openness to MY feelings on the matter. His opinion means the most to me in the whole world and I do not talk to him about faith because his comments sometimes make me feel like a gullible fool for believing in the unseen in the first place.
  
  
• I pray, but haphazardly. I pray for my husband sometimes, but he doesn't know it. I don't want to sound like I've flipped my lid.
  
  
• I listen to Christian music and podcasts, and read books with a Christian theme, but still feel 'guilty' doing it.
  
  
• Sometimes married life feels like a tethered life.

I adore my husband (he truly is one of the most decent, caring, responsible men I've ever met), I crave my children, and overall, life is pretty darn sweet. But it's not perfect, and neither am I. It's about time I stopped caring what others think and start living for real.