Together

Years ago, we gave Ed's mother a sign that said, "I finally got it all together and then I forgot where I put it." Every time I hear the word together, I think of that sign and chuckle. So true, so true.

It's getting harder and harder to get our family together these days. I'm sure it's the same situation with most families. Even excluding my relatives in Memphis, it's still hard to get our two kids and their spouses/kids together at one time. It's more difficult to get in one place to take the annual Christmas card picture. It's also more complicated on other special days.

Matt was talking to me last night about when we could all get together for Mother's Day. I have to work anyway, and both my children have in-law mothers and/or grandmothers who are older and/0r live farther away than I do, so I don't mind in the least that they go visit them for Mother's Day. I can see my kids another time. My Mother's Day is happy just knowing my children are healthy and content. Seeing them is just icing on the cake.

It takes longer these days to "get it all together" for me. Take physically: It takes longer to take photo of myself that I am satisfied with. It takes longer to get myself presentable in the morning.

As usual, I'm really thinking about "getting it all together" on the inside. The older I get, the more I realize that I am a compilation of many parts, and these parts have to live congenially in one body/soul, and if I neglect one part, the whole somehow suffers. My job as a medical transcriptionist caters very well to my analytical self - the part of me that loves words and grammar and spelling and language. It also gives me daily challenges. It gives me experience in problem-solving and trouble-shooting. It gives me great pleasure to come home from work after a productive day (which is not always reflected in how many lines I transcribed, but also can be the result of problems I successfully solved or a word expander created months ago that I actually remembered).

Then there's the creative side of me - the desire to write, to make greeting cards, to quilt, to cross-stitch, to take photographs, to sing, and to play the harp and piano. This part of me, too, must have an outlet. This is the part I tend to neglect. It's like being a school district with a limited budget. The reading, writing and arithmetic are necessities; the music and art programs will have to suffer, because they're dispensable. Such a shame.

I am still learning that to be "perfect" means to be "whole," and the whole with a few slices cut out of it is missing more than I think. What a continuing challenge it has been to try to integrate these various parts of myself and deem each one worthy to be fed!