Okay-so those of you who know me will understand why I had to take a summer blog hiatus. Our summer was full of moving and road trips and really, an unbelievable amount of stress which I will not labor over. I am feeling totally drained in so many ways and I realized I need to refill my creativity bucket. This is the best way I can manage at the moment since all of my toys are still in boxes. So I hope I can draw back some of my online support group by getting some regular posts going.
First-I am loving California! So for all of my complaining about the getting here part I have to say that soon I will surrender myself to the admission that it was all worth it. Yes-I am holding back a bit since we are still dealing with the moving company and a major insurance claim (oh yeah-I wasn't going to labor over the stressful stuff!).
We are all now at home together in north San Diego County and getting very comfortable here. I have always been a California girl at heart even though officially as of last year I had lived equal parts of my life in and out of California. Now I can get back to being a true native! I really do feel energized by being here and things are falling into place very nicely. Our home has worked out perfectly and I really adore our new neighborhood and community, school, church ward, etc. I even love doing errands here since this community was planned so well and really flows very nicely as far as the lay of the land goes. I have even found a friend at church to do a weekly morning swap with our littles so we can squeeze in a morning out sans babies.
We just returned from a weekend at my parents home in northern CA (another benefit of moving back here-being able to get there any time!) to listen to my sister's homecoming talk. She just returned from an LDS Mission in Berlin, Germany and she is doing great. I love the energy and excitement of a newly returned missionary and she was just bubbling over with passion for her love for serving others and her love of and commitment to serving the Savior. I'm so grateful that my children have had the experience of hearing first hand from her about the joys of her service and I am grateful for being constantly reminded of my own mission service and how happy that continues to make me feel.
So now for my moment to confess that I lately I am in a personal slump. I think this summer has taken a lot out of me. I have been trying to really focus on keeping it all in perspective and being so grateful for the wonderful and amazing life that our family has but truthfully I am feeling a bit of an identity crisis. I know it sounds cliche and that we all experience it. Here is my question to you-what do you do to maintain "you"? How do I manage all of my roles of mom, tutor, housekeeper, friend, etc. and still feel like a person of individual value? Is this just the eternal question we each ask daily? And I guess the bigger question is, am I selfish for feeling a lack? My husband seems puzzled by this idea that anything can be missing from my apparently very full life-which it is. Get vulnerable with me and share you thoughts!
