Just A Friendly Reminder...

It has been a long time since I last posted...too many thoughts and not enough organization up in this head of mine I guess. I have actually started this blog more than once, only to leave it and come back and delete everything I have written. That pretty much sums up the last few weeks for me though. For some reason I just can't motivate myself to do much. Maybe my brain just started "vacation mode" a little early or maybe I have just been so overwhelmed with everything in my life that parts of my brain are shutting down. Either one would would seem like a reasonable guess. This time of year is always a little bit crazy with school getting out and transitioning into warmer weather. This year we have added baseball to that list and boy, is that time-consuming! Unfortunately, no one seems to be adjusting too well to it all this year and it has made for short tempers and lots of time-outs in the Trotter house. I am afraid to say that I am not sure I am handling this well. I am noticing that a lot of the behaviors that I am having to deal with these days seem to be resulting from a new parenting schedule. Oddly enough, the more time my kids have to spend with their dad, the worse their behavior seems to be. This is extremely frustrating to me and when combined with my exhaustion from the kids, I don't seem to have much patience for my ex. After all, when it comes down to it, I blame him for us being in this situation. Period.

I told myself when I decided to start blogging, that I was not going to allow myself to spend all of my time bashing my ex. However, there is a time and place to air your grievances and if we are talking about my life, it would be unrealistic to think that I have nothing bad to say about him. That being said, the truth is that more exhausting that dealing with the kids, is dealing with the ex. It is a difficult thing to cope with, knowing and loving a person for 15 years and then suddenly realizing that you never really knew that person at all. I have always thought myself to be a pretty good judge of character when it comes to people, but after this experience in my life, I really have to question that. How do you spend nearly half of your life with a person, only to find out that they were never actually the person you thought they were? Was I really that blind to it all or was he really that good at hiding it?

You would think that now that the divorce has been finalized and the dust has settled, things would get easier. That was what I thought. But I am now realizing that getting easier is going to take a lot more time and a lot more work on my part. You see, there are two different personalities that struggle for the top position inside of me. One is the person who does not like conflict and does her best to avoid it and the other is the person who is going to tell you what she thinks and is not going to pretend to be anything she is not. It has not been easy, but I have worked very hard to push the non-confrontational side of myself down when it comes to my ex. I am constantly reminding myself that "you get what you pay for". If I sit back and allow him to be dishonest with me and don't say anything, then he will continue to do it and I will just continue to live with this anger inside of me and I do not want to spend the rest of my life feeling angry all the time. So, there has been conflict. But in a strange and unexpected way, this conflict brings me a great sense of empowerment. It feels great to stand up for myself and say exactly what I want to say, no holding back. But on the other hand, conflict is exhausting and if you aren't careful it can consume your life.

Which brings me to now. I think I still had so much anger building inside me that when the opportunity presented itself to me to stand up for myself, I did it...with a vengeance...more than once. While it was a great release for me, it also had me viewing the world around me in a very negative light. My overall attitude was not good and it was affecting everyone around me, namely my kids. But then something happened. I came home from class last night to find a complete stranger mowing my lawn. My very overgrown lawn that has not been mowed in over two weeks now while my mower is in the shop. When I stopped this man to find out what was going on, he simply told me that my lawn always looks so nice and he had noticed the grass getting longer and longer and figured that something must have been wrong, so he just wanted to help. Simple as that. I was both humbled and blown away by his kindness.

I know that God will never give me more than I can handle, and apparently He thinks I can handle quite a bit! The thing is, sometimes when you are in the midst of dealing with everything that life is giving you, it can be easy to forget that you are not alone in your struggles. But that is when God walks up behind you and gives you a little tap on the shoulder. Just a friendly reminder that He is still walking with you on your journey, and that reminder can come in many forms. This time is just happened to be in the form of a stranger mowing my lawn!