Contentment In My Kitchen

Funny thing happened this week as I was chopping and sauteing and boiling and crock potting.

I felt a blanket of special contentment envelop me. I was working in my kitchen but I was relaxed. Those two usually don't go hand-in-hand. There was joy I could touch. I caught myself smiling and sighing and saying a little "Thank you Lord" under my breath.

If I'm honest, it's the first time in quite some time that I have felt that in my own home doing home stuff. I feel content and joy-filled when I'm on a photography shoot. Or when I'm upstairs in my delicious scrapbook room, creating something with paper and photos and ribbon and colour. Or when I'm driving down the road, alone, listening to great music. Or when I'm on an organizing frenzy in my home. Or when I'm reading a book to one of my kids, under the heated throw blanket, on the couch, with lamp light. Or when I'm at a restaurant with a friend, listening and chatting and chatting and listening. Or when I'm sitting around with girlfriends, hearing what is moving them, what is challenging them. Or when my hubby and I are watching The Waltons, episode after moving episode. Overall, I really do feel contented.

But not usually when I'm doing mommy/house management duties. Those tend to wear me out. De-energize. I think I often see them as just that; duties. Requirements.

But this particular Tuesday morning I felt alive. I was working for my family and it felt deep-down good. Fulfilling. Rewarding. Enjoyable.

I think I'm finding that perhaps I'm selfish. Who are we kidding? I don't 'think', I know. A whole lot of selfish. And so it has taken me some time to work my way into the right attitude about this 24/7 thing called mothering.

This year I want to fully live. Don't you, too? Soaking in every hour of every day. Savouring each experience instead of seeing so many of my experiences as duties, jobs to do, tasks to manage. Squishing in as much goodness and kindness into each minute so that I have no regrets.

I don't want to look back on these years of my life and think that I was in survival mode for a decade or two. And honestly, that's how I tend to feel. Surviving to get to creating/dreaming time.

You see, part of me was made to fly and flit about and change and pursue and dream, dream, dream. So when I'm caught up in the 24/7 ness of mothering, it sometimes feels stifling to me. And yet, I think it goes back to the perspective thing. If I looked at mothering like I looked at an upcoming photo shoot, I would see the endless possibilities. I would welcome the challenges. I would love the work of it.

I think the older I get the more I realize that so much of life really is in how I perceive. My expectations. My attitude. It starts in the mind, I do believe.

And so as I've journeyed the rest of this week, I have caught myself back on Tuesday morning where I found contentment in my kitchen. May I have many, many more of those moments in the coming days. In fact, I'm hopeful that contentment will race through my entire home and become part of each day. Always. Forever and ever.

Carpe Diem.

And I just happened upon Mr. Lion and thought, "See, he's seizing the day. He's racing to the next house and up the steps to ring the doorbell." 

He's excited. 

And alive. 

And delightful.

I wanna be those things, too!