guilt

first, let's use this picture to preface anything REAL i say in this post.
i went grocery shopping this morning.
i still feel like crap. i can't really pinpoint WHAT, but it took me 30 minutes to convince myself to MOVE once i woke up this morning. mostly i just feel like someone is laying on top of me and doesn't want me to move. and when i DO move, i'm dragging that person around with me. it's exhausting! and i'm SICK of it.

ok. back to grocery shopping. i think i came home with most of what was on my list. and i'm not going back for a week, so we might have to get creative. but i also came home with a few extra things (which i hardly ever do. i have decent self-control in this area.)
*a watermelon-not really in the budget but it will get eaten and enjoyed and is healthy, so it's ok.
*those 3 packets that are yummy drinks for me. i've never seen those before! and looking at them now, with the way that i feel, makes me feel sick. they would be fun to drink on a night when pat grabs a beer and i usually would be sitting next to him with my nice, icy glass of...water. they are way more fun than water! random though. they were on the endcap of an aisle and it worked on me. ha! also not in the budget.
*swedish fish. my weakness. and something i don't eat anymore. i'm really {mostly} not eating ANY sugar - especially things like this! but i bought them. and i will eat them at some point. (for the record, it's been 4 hours since i bought them and they are still unopened.)

so. all that to sum up that i'm not making the most sense at the moment. ok?

but i do want to switch gears and talk about something real.

guilt.

we all feel it to a degree in our days. things we should have done that we didn't. things we shouldn't have done that we did.

well, it's magnified lots of times over when you are dealing with an adopted child. i have not been the type of mom, over the years, to try to be perfect. i try HARD and i am always trying to grow. but perfect? no way. if anything, i embrace the NOT perfect parts and show them off to my kids so that they KNOW i'm a REAL person! that fails. and yells. and has to ask forgiveness. i'm comfortable with not being perfect.

if i get impatient, or frustrated, or too snippy, i ask their forgiveness and we move on. END.OF.STORY. like, i never think about it again. and i'm pretty sure they don't either.

this is NOT the case in my relationship with lincoln.

when i lay in bed at night, i remember EVERY time he cried that day and why. EVERY time he asked a question that made my heart hurt. EVERY time he did something that revealed he isn't sure about his place in our family. i remember and i hold on and i have a HARD time moving on and letting go. sometimes this is ok. i do need to think through some of his actions a little more than the others. but mostly i don't. mostly he's a 4 year old being a 4 year old and i'm his mom being his mom and we just need to keep moving forward.

the guilt keeps me stuck. not able to move forward. i KNOW it's not something to hold onto.

and i write this so that one day, in my growth, in his growth, in OUR growth, i can remember how it was. and rejoice that it's not that way anymore!

but, for now, there is guilt and it weighs me down and i hate it.

{ok. happy weekend! enjoy! i AM going to run tomorrow. whether i have to crawl it or not...in addition to having some self-control...and not being perfect...i'm also VERY stubborn. :-)}