Saturday Night {Pity} Party

It was Saturday night (less than 24 hours ago).

My husband was working all day and into the later part of the evening, as I came to find out.

I am tremendously grateful he has a job. Factually, I know beyond a doubt that we are living large compared to MOST of the world. I am always just one click or one call away from hearing the miseries that the world and my friends are living with.

Yet...In my humanity, and knee-deep into mothering very small people who can do very little for themselves and have yet to be detoxed from immediately resorting to whining/crying when they need assistance (me too!), my perspective can all too easily be whittled down to only include what is smack-dab in front of me contrasted with a made-up reality. In moments such as these, I clump the rest of the world together, assume that 'everyone else' is doing this or that and thus, throw myself a little party full of pitiful pity. Which takes me back to last night.

My Saturday night:

Me versus 'Everyone Else'

While "everyone else" was gathering in their chiffon cocktail gowns and silk ties for a smashing dinner party....

...I found my little guy "shaving his whiskers" in the bathroom at 5:15. He was 'all ready' with no where to go. (The razor part was removed off the base. No need to worry, mom!)

While "everyone else" was preparing to be seated around tables draped in Damask and crowned with crystal....


... a tub made of stainless steal was filled to the brim with crusty chrome, waiting for me (not my non-existent hired help) to tackle the task. Most sophisticated people of the world had not even LEFT their homes for their dinner parties at this point. Mine was over at 5:30.
At least I had Lilacs (thanks, mom).

Have you had to go for your tissue's yet??


While "everyone else" took to the dance floor to the toe-tapping rhythm of Glenn Miller tunes, glitzy gowns swirling around their partner's crisp tuxedo clad legs...



...I darted to and fro, across the kitchen floor in a pair of Old Navy flip flops - a hair-pulling little man in one hand, and a pan of brownies in another. In the crook of my elbow was a Dora purse that needed returned to it's place upstairs, where one way-too-quiet one year old had escaped to. (one of my little girls likes to quietly take the camera and snap pictures before I can notice her)



And yet again, while "everyone else" was decompressing after their day of fun & frolic by joining together at a chic roof-top lounge for a nightcap or two...


...this is what awaited me: A fort gone bad. I could have snapped various pictures all over the house, but I was tired enough.



I find it sadly amazing how quickly my world can narrow to include just the temporary season of life, zeroing in on the petty frustrations that can magnify themselves with the enemy of our souls whispering words of comparison and discontent. All that 'unseen' activity that goes on in my mind can certainly affect what IS seen.



There is no such thing as "EVERY one else". That imaginary clumping of people I make up in my mind is nothing new. I have done so since Kindergarten (at least) during times when I want to feel pity for myself, even for the most minute of inconveniences.


Today, I have banished the 'everyone else's' and have kicked my rear in gear, keeping my mind active to the harsher realities of the world, and the countless things I have to be thankful for. Maybe it's just me, but if you ever struggle with the same....I am with you! And I am cheering on your choices (because we make many in a day!) to keep an open, clean and comparison-free mind!

Makes for better living, don't you think??