It’s Tuesday.
Gone is the ambition of Monday. Friday seems so far away.
Tuesday is on the way to somewhere and it hasn’t arrived yet.
My Tuesday home is surrounded by laundry. It’s kitchen has served shifts of breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinner and it begs to be cleaned. In the living room, legos and trains threaten to break the delicate skin of your foot. Within its walls, there are falls, squabbles, spills and thrills – small ones, mind you. You can miss them if you’re not careful. If you’re wishing the Tuesdays away.
For sure, there is beauty in my new life at home with three precious littles ages three and under. Still, most days are spent surviving, not in admiration or exaltation. Girlfriend, I have dreams for my life, places to travel to, ideas of how our family can serve more or how to raise beautiful souls. But here is the deal, my real life reality. Most of my days are spent pulling apart fights and lugging around laundry baskets. Wondering what to feed hungry mouths or how to carry three bodies with two hands. Nights are spent feeding, comforting and negotiating. The Tuesdays are long.
Am I the only one who comes down with Sunday night blues? After relationally rich weekends and meaningful conversations, I fall hard. That’s because I am really struggling to sit in a whole week of Tuesdays. Make that a whole season of wash-dry-fold-repeat ordinary days. Come Sunday night, the ongoing same-old same-old is terrifying. Isn’t there more to life than this?
I was rocking a carseat with one foot yesterday, when the embossed foil lettering on Emily Freeman’s new book Simply Tuesday lured me in. It’s not a book just for mamas. “Real life happens in the small moments we find on the most ordinary day of the week. Tuesday holds secrets we can’t see in a hurry” she writes.
I loved how Emily jots down “these are the days of…” at the top of her journals. My today’s entry would read:
These are the days of…
Tiny fingerprints on windows and stained shirts
Cups spilled again, floors swept again
Pacifier weaning, diaper changes and night feedings
Toddler stand-offs and newborn spit-ups
Self-sacrifice and sleep-deprivation
And what if we saw the small moments in life as reminders of something far greater than ourselves? What if the most meaningful parts of life are found in the journey to reach the end goal? What breath-taking things could I see if I wasn’t caught up in pursuing Wednesday?
These are also the days of..
Tuesday living room dance parties and magical snow picnics
Hand holding, tight hugs and sitting in laps
First jokes and unrestrained laughter from the gut
A shameless existence and exuberance for life
First prayers and learning to share
Freeman is right. Far away from the Instaglam, life is lived.
Life is found in the small, often utterly unglamorous moments of my Tuesday home.