I don't know about you, but I am SO bad about not seeing what I have and always wishing for more. Only material things, mind you. I definitely see how blessed I am as far as friends and family goes.
With Pinterest, blogs, magazines, etc... It hard to not want to constantly keep up with new trends, right?
I'm always thinking about a new piece of furniture, a new car, new clothes.... I could go on and on. But here's the thing... if you knew where Josh and I started from, you would see why I'm so frustrated with myself.
Josh grew up in a one income family with 7 children. There were a lot of hand-me-downs, food stretching, and just getting by. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, it happens. His parents were poor at managing money and the kids suffered.
I grew up with a single mom. There were also hand-me-downs, days where we had to walk home from day care when the car ran out of gas, and butter and crackers for dinner.
My mom did the best she could of course and when I was a child, I never cared about any of the afore-mentioned things. It was normal and I was happy.
When I was a teenager, I realized that we were not normal. I started craving "normal".
(Okay, our mom a was a hoarder. Like, those people on the show, but worse. There you go friends from Junior High and High school. There's my dark secret.)
We didn't have heat, a stove, a refrigerator, washer or dryer, and sometimes we didn't have hot water. Repairmen couldn't get in the house to repair anything. It was a disease my mom couldn't beat. No matter how many times my sister tried to clean, my mom would drag all the trash back in and dump it out in case we had thrown anything important out. It eventually got to a point after my sister got married and moved out that I didn't even know where to start anymore. I just wanted to burn it down. It was a burden to our family. Okay, I can't even go on. It just makes me too sad.
It was embarrassing.
(My sister and brother-in-law cleaned out the house and did an overhaul on it. They live there with their family now and it's GORGEOUS!)
I vowed when I was 18 and met Josh, that I would give my kids as "vanilla" a life as possible. That meant that they would have what they needed/wanted, with some excess. Our house would be clean and organized. I would be a homemaker so I could make sure my family ran smoothly. Whatever my family needed or wanted, I would provide. I wanted to be the Cleavers.
When we were first married, we lived in a tiny two bedroom apartment surrounded by questionable folks on the not-so-great part of town. We made the best of it, but after we got pregnant with Sawyer, we realized we needed to move. After a house deal fell through, we moved to a nicer two bedroom apartment. We loved our neighbor and our home, but we wanted to buy a house.
When were 23 we bought our first house. We've furnished it with nice things. We own 2 cars outright and next year we will own 3. We of course have some rough times, but for the most part, we can purchase what we want when we want to.
So, after starting from such a bleak place and acquiring what we have now at 26, why am I wanting more?
Because I don't think about where I came from as much as I should. It's not a nice place to revisit. However, I guess I need to think back more often so I can revel in what we have now.
I'm disappointed in myself for becoming so materialistic. I suppose if you look at the psychology of it all, it can be explained away. However, my past is not an excuse. Now that I have realized the source of the problem, I need to fix it.
Yuck. I hate being an adult sometimes.
Our kids already have more than we did, so: Mission Accomplished.
Slow down, Heather. It doesn't have to be perfect. Your kids will never know about your past, so you don't need to make it up to them. It's your past, not theirs. Just chill, lady!
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