Blessed by the Mess that is Motherhood

I live in a 200 square foot home with three guys.

It's an Airstream that we've been living in for a while now so we can travel the country together - heaps of fun, but still a small amount of living space.

They keep their stuff tidy (they know I’ll panic if they don’t), but I still spend heaps of time each day moving this or that, scrubbing just one more thing, and putting away all manner of things that threaten to clutter our little home.

While we love to spend most of our hours together outdoors, we inevitably bring a bit of that outdoors into our home too, and I'm the one who likes to scrub that outdoors out of our floors and make this tiny space feel like home.

I don’t even realize I’m doing it anymore – that is, I didn’t realize I was doing it until they left me alone for 8 hours straight today.

I needed to attend an online conference, so rather than watch me hooked to a screen hour after hour, they took off on a movie and shopping date together – just Dad and the kids.

And here I was all alone in my 200 square feet.

I spent the first 20 minutes cleaning, scrubbing, and moving all the things, feeling pretty good as I scrubbed with no one coming right behind me to mess it up again.

But then, everything was clean, and as I breathed in deeply, reveling in my clean, shiny, decluttered haven, I realized it was time to dig into my work for the day.

Just 2 hours later, though, I wasn’t reveling at all.

I missed my family.

I missed their mess.

I was bored without moving their clutter or dodging their projects.

It was too easy to go to the bathroom and not have to check the toilet seat for spray every time, too easy to use the sink without it overflowing with dirty dishes all day.

I wanted my people back.

And in that moment I realized one major downside to living together in a tiny space and traveling full-time together as a family for as long as we have (nearly 6 years as I'm writing this post):

We rarely get to miss each other.

We rarely get a taste for what it's like to be alone.

And although we really like it that way, I realize that when our two little guys grow up and move on to college and career and a family of their own, this little nest (or whatever nest we're living and traveling in at the time) is going to be in for quite the shock.

This kind of out-of-the-box togetherness is something we dreamed about and sacrificed for. It's what makes our heart sing, and it's something we know is so worth it for us, but that doesn't mean I always realize how good I have it by being home with my people every day.

In fact, there are a lot of days when I forget to be thankful at all, and I want to change that.

So today, I decided something.

I decided that I don't want to complain about doing the dishes anymore. I'm blessed to have so many dishes to do.

I don't want to breathe a heavy sigh when I have to wipe off that toilet seat. I'm blessed that there are people there sharing that toilet with me (although I am still trying to teach them some manners).

And I don't want to grumble as I peel another Lego brick out of the bottom of my foot.

Before I know it, I'll be missing this mess we call home, remembering these days with a tearful smile, wishing I had enjoyed them more.

So I plan on enjoying them more right now.

I plan on living completely blessed by this mess I get to call my own for as long as I get to live with these little humans that are mine. I'm still working on it, and I might still be working on it for years to come, but that is exactly what I want to do.

What about you?

What makes you stop and realize that you don't want to take these days for granted?

Come chat about it in the email group - I'd love to hear from you!