Blissful Contentment
These words sound like such a beautiful but almost unachievable thing. We have a crazy life with three kids and two homes, but yesterday I can honestly say I achieved it. I also have to admit I started crying when it happened. Greg knows I am a super emotional person so when he sees the tears he knows to just hold my hand and let them flow.
We have been coming to Bethany for the past three weekends to move in and enjoy our new beach house. We have been inviting friends and relatives down to enjoy the pace of life with us as well. I thought seeing all of the smiles and laughter and the new memories would be the best and, don’t get me wrong, they were, but something was still missing.
Let me start out by saying that it took me 4 hours to get to the beach this past Friday. Normally it takes 2½ hours. I had all three kids in the car and traffic was horrible. I was already on a rollercoaster of emotions that day. My son had just gotten his first bee sting minutes before we left and I had no idea if he was allergic or not. This meant an emergency trip to CVS for some Benadryl. Then I got a plaque in the mail saying that I had placed 3rd in my age group in the Bethany Beach Duathlon I ran in September. This was something I had never thought of achieving. The only goal I had for the duathlon was to finish without walking or having to stop. I certainly surprised myself! Then we get in the car and spent two hours sitting in traffic where we should have spent a mere 5 minutes cruising through. Blissful contentment at that time was pretty hard to find. I had a small glimpse of it when we arrived at the house and my husband had already started tackling our weekend list of tasks with a vengeance. He sometimes leaves straight from work instead of coming home first and he had dinner ready, a lap for the kids to climb in, and a glass of wine waiting for me. I couldn’t be more thankful and happy after the day I was having. The real kicker was just sitting on our back deck with the kids eating brownies I had brought down and looking at the stars together. We were all so carefree and in the moment.
This is a great segue into the fact that our new house finally feels like a home. For me that is huge! When you can walk into a room and not have your eyes and mind going every which way thinking about the next task or the next thing to clean is so relaxing and freeing. I was able to really relax that night after a pretty stressful drive with the kids yelling about the lack of food, the temperature in the back of the car, what music to listen to and so forth. Having a house feel like home is pretty awesome. We still don’t have pictures hung up on the walls, but at least some of the boxes are out of the house and everyone’s bed is “comfy and cozy” as my 3yr old says. Even the baby has her own crib down there.
The poem by Robert Frost entitled Stopping by The Woods On A Snowy Evening really summed up my blissfully contented moment.
The woods are lovely dark, and deep But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.
I feel like as a family we have bought into a new life where we now have many more moments of exploring the woods, the beach, ourselves, and each other than we did just a mere month ago. For this I am so thankful. I had another small moment during a family hike yesterday where I thought this is too good to be true. The other foot has to drop and something has to go wrong. But then I realized it all needs to be put into perspective. We need to teach our kids and ourselves humility, gratitude, and respect for all of our blessings. And for this I believe I found my moment of blissful contentment.