It isn't. Pure sunshine, I mean.
This doesn't take away my gratitude, and I think I'm a fairly optimistic person. But I experience my own cloudy days, my own storms. But they usually end with some kind of rainbow.
My storms may be different from yours, but like yours, they need to be endured. Weathered.
I get pretty lonely, but not in the sense that I need to have people around me all the time. Just in that I see others form tight bonds with others, and I so rarely have been able to do that. Lately it has hit me pretty hard.
In high school other girls frequently told me I was perfect. Maybe it was a combination of my high moral standards and my involvement in school, but I hated it. I don't know if I ever told them that. Not only was that so far from the truth, but I knew it kept them from wanting to bond with me. I mean, who on earth would want to be friends with someone that would "make" them feel inferior all the time?
So I stuck with the guys mostly. They didn't care. They appreciated me for who I was, but had no need to compare. My best friend Anne shared many of my standards, so at least we bonded easily.
Fast forward through college and early-married life, and we come to the point where, again, I feel like an outsider, mainly because I have a label. I am the Stake President's wife. (For those that aren't members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Stake President is the ecclesiastical leader who oversees the congregations in a certain specified geographical area.)
Maybe to some I actually have a name. A lot of people know who I am. Yet I think so few want to know me. Or, rather, they probably think they already do, assuming that a stake president's family never has any problems and can't relate to anyone, or that we totally have our acts completely together.
Never mind the Legos and Jenga blocks scattered all over the floor, or the recycling that's piling up on the kitchen counter, or the kids that "forget" to practice piano, or all the unmade beds and open dresser drawers, or the water heater that decided it didn't want to work anymore.
Never mind the 12-year-old griping about have to ride her bike to school, or the 14-year-old who gave me attitude last night when I asked (at 10 o'clock at night) if she had even started her homework yet, or that the dinner I made last night was too salty.
Never mind that the 7-year-old was late to tap class and the 10-year-old was late to baseball (when I'm the team mom and Kevin is an assistant coach), or that our lovely Brazilian friend always thinks to give us gifts and I rarely think to give anything to anyone.
Admittedly there aren't Legos and Jenga blocks on the floor all the time, and a lot of the time they actually do practice their music and make their beds (except Sami...), do their homework, and make it to practices on time. And occasionally I think to give something to someone, but it's rare. (So if I have given you something, feel special-- especially if I made it!)
We are trying. I am trying. Every single day. I actually rolled out of bed today to say my prayer, and I realized that I always plead for "help through the day." I beg for it. And I don't really consider it a "vain repetition" because I honestly need it. I need Him to help me, and He does-- often through friends and neighbors who are able to lend a helping hand when I can't get one child to a voice lesson and pick up another from school at the same time.
(I'm laughing to myself because even right now I am nearly falling asleep at the computer from running on so little sleep, having woken up at 5:20 to get Allie to seminary this morning.)
So often I think we fail to look beneath the surface. What you see may not necessarily be a woman who "has it all together," but a woman who is holding it all together... for dear life. She is trying, too. Because that's all she can do.
It's ok to reach out to her.
