Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Birthday Blog: That means it would be really rude if you didn't read it

I'm a grown up now.  I've been married for ten years.  I've been a parent for ten years.  My oldest child is almost ten.  I have ten fingers and ten toes.  You get the picture.  I thought I'd write a letter to my 22-year-old self.  It's going to be serious and straight forward but gentle and humorous.  It will be rebukefull and encouragefull.

Dear 22-year-old self named Rachel,


  Dang girl!  Look at your skinny little pre-pregnant self!  What was your wedding dress, a size 4?  Your daughter is going to ask you to put it on again in about five years.  It's not going to work out that great.  The fact is you think your husband thinks you're attractive now?  Just wait and see what 30 months of deployment over six years of serving in the Navy does.  Just wait and see what moving across states, bearing and raising four children, buying a house, finding renters for the house, dealing with ER visits, and bills, and broken appliances does to your attractiveness for him.  Four kids and ten years will give you some curves and he will love those curves.  John Legend songs will start playing in his head when you walk in the room.  Ten years of faithful love ALWAYS trumps skinny.  You'll see it in his eyes.  Same thing will happen to your eyes.  You'll get unconditional love juice stuck in them.

  Why are you so darn pretentious with your childbirth choices?  Why does your snobby little breath get caught in your throat when you hear about another "fallen to the epidural" birth story.  Get off your high horse!  You look ridiculous up there!  Keep your stupid feet on the ground.  If someone asks you about your childbirth choices then tell them in a nice, non-snobby way.  Childbirth does hurt, you know.  What are you one of those tall tale heroes that needs everyone to know how much pain you can stand and the great walloping undertaking that you went through yet lived to tell the tale?  Natural childbirth is beautiful indeed.  Just stop being annoying about it.

  You like to talk.  You like to talk about what works.  All wives and mothers like to talk about "what works."  Pacifiers work.  No they don't.  Dave Ramsey doesn't work.  Yes it does.  No it doesn't.  Nursing the baby to sleep works.  No it doesn't.  Yes it does.  Moms should work.  Moms should not work. You should make them eat all there food.  No you shouldn't.  Make sure you take time for yourself.  No you shouldn't, you selfish woman.  Pick up your husbands socks.  No, do not pick up that man's socks.  Get up before the kids.  Are you crazy?  Don't get up before the kids.  Read that life-changing book.  That book is stupid and people who read it are stupid.  And you're stupid.  At some point you need to shut up and just LOVE JESUS.  Loving Jesus has no DO THIS or DON'T DO THAT.  It's just reading the Word and falling in love with Him and His people.  Stop stressing out about what works and what does not work and placing yourself in the group that hangs out together only because they agree that that pointless thing works.  Don't be so discouraged by the female cries of "You're ruining your life doing that because it does not work."  YOU stop being one of those females that cry that.  You really drive me crazy when you do that.

  As far as what the Word of God has to say just shut up and let the Word of God say it.  There's a lot of unclear things that Christian women will ask you and will want to talk over.  Those unclear things really aren't important.  But Christian women might make them important.  It will exhaust you.  Try to stick to talking about what the Bible has made clear.  Life holds a lot of preferences. God's Words are more important than your words and other women's words however well-meaning they may be.  Just shut your face.  Only open it to share God's words and also for pie.  Nothing wrong with talking about preferences just don't be annoying about it.

  Your four children will drive you to your knees in exhaustion and prayer.  One day, you'll be taking a walk with your oldest and carrying on a deep spiritual conversation and you just won't mind the last ten years of exhaustion.  Those moments will come scattered all in between the exhausted ones.

  Listen, you whiney baby.  Your husband will fall short of your expectations in some way on a daily basis.  Stop whining about it.  Gosh!  I'm so tired of your whining!  Your husband is what they call a human being.  If you wanted to marry somebody perfect why didn't you marry a robot or maybe a young Sean Connery or something?  Every time your husband falls short forgive, forget, and for crying out loud stop whining.  Your husband is awesome.  Ten years will prove that over and over.

  You're going to make it kid.  You'll have curves, grays, laughs, lessons, failures, temper tantrums, tears, poop on your favorite shirt, frustrations, hot dates.  You are not as amazing as you think you are.  You're stupid a lot of the time and pridefull too.  And so annoying!  But God sees fit to pick you up every time, dust off your fanny, and give you a brand new day.  Happy birthday.  I'm going to go eat some chocolate cake and add some more curve to these 32 years.

With love and annoyance,
  32-year-old Me

P.S. You'll start a blog in about five years and change the name of it five times.

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