Different places, different times.

It's that time of year again. Time when people are vacationing and doing all kinds of fun things with life.  Social networking has made it nearly impossible to not notice how exciting life can be.  For others.  I have come to a place again, maybe a slump of sorts even, where I feel friendless, lonely, and bored.  It's all perception and it's all pretty much my own issue I know.  Another insecurity to work through, another hurdle to jump. Part of me blames Satan...seriously. I've been working hard this summer on learning about me, about God and about conquering issues that come with being human.  That usually is when Satan has a field day with me.  When I'm doing things right in God's eyes or at least trying to learn and grow in the correct way.

Here's the deal.  Having children changed my life forever.  Yes, I'll say for the better mostly because everyone else ends that statement with those words.  It's not that I don't treasure my kids or my role as mom to them because I do. They're the loves of my life and I would literally give my life for either of them in a heartbeat.  It's not about not loving them. It's about jealousy on my part.  People my age have teens or older kids.  People my age are taking trips with girlfriends that are just the adults.  People my age have others who call them regularly and ask them to get together for girls night out or supper or whatever.  I became a mom at a later age so at the time when I was single and free and able to afford more outings, my friends weren't because they were raising children and now that they're free as birds and out all the time, I'm raising my children.  Would I change it?  Not necessarily.  I feel like I'm a better mom because of the wisdom my age has brought to me than I would have been at 23. But, of course there are drawbacks, too, but this isn't an age discussion.  That will have to be a later post.  So, ultimately, I find myself sitting home with the kids 99% of the time.  I guess that's what parenting is. But when you're single and don't have adult conversation or fun sometimes, it gets to be a little old.  I thought I had friends.  I was homecoming queen for pete's sake. But in the last two days,  I've texted four people simply to reconnect, only to be ignored.  I've emailed two, ignored by one.  My phone has rung five times in the last two days---four of those were family calls, one was my financial advisor at Edward Jones.  What does all of this mean?

Good question. Are we all under these misconceptions that everyone else in the world is having a better life than we are?  Is it normal to feel jealous when I see yet another status update about "another wonderful girls night out" or "just returned from a trip to....."  Is God happy with me right now or is He shaking his head wondering when I'm going to "get it?"  I'm not sure if what I've got is jealousy, envy, insecurity or all rolled into one.  Then there's the flip side of the coin where my daughters come into play and I look at them and wonder if I'm doing them a disservice by being their bored mom who spends lots of time at home with them---although we do things together and they have mostly done creative play this summer which makes me proud of their imaginations---but I still wonder.

Anyway.....just another summer slump.  I refuse to be a downer for long though because I know that if I feel lonely now (from people, not from God) then I will really feel lonely if I let on that I'm slumping.  Sad, but true.