Peace, Acceptance & A Birthday

     The past two weeks or so I have been struggling with accepting where I felt God leading me. I have said NO to a lot of things; cut way back on commitments outside the home. In fact, I even caught myself starting to send an email in response to a studio that I saw hiring and I literally had to stop myself and say "WHAT are you doing, Jodie?!". I have this fear of missing out on something. Like, I want to do ALL the things and teach ALL the classes. 

CHASE ALL THE RABBITS...and catch none.

     I had a moment on Tuesday... 18 months of teaching a Tuesday night cycle class that has been "mine" since the cycle studio opened at The Fed...I gave up that class once I found out we were moving farther north, father away from downtown. This past Tuesday was the first day my friend took over teaching it. And, as I was sitting at home with Curtis, waiting to head to pick up the boys from their two different schools, I realized I didn't have to come home, change and leave within 45 minutes of picking up Gage. And, I sighed a little. It's not that I don't miss those people. Because I do. We became friends and we shared little parts of our lives and updated each other on big events every time we got together to ride. But, I realized that my kids and Curtis have needed me a lot more than I have allowed myself to think about. 

     Y'all know what denial is. I have been in denial about how much more I could have been doing for my family, had I not been so tied up with teaching. Because we don't just show up and wing it. We practice, plan, compile playlists, test the work. I won't waste energy feeling sad over any potential time I lost with my kids. Because we all have to work outside the home sometimes. Maybe I could have worked less, but it took time for me to slowly peel back the layers. If Curtis had been insistent that I drop everything, I'm sure I would have been more resistant to change. 

     The real moment I had on Tuesday was realizing Curtis had worked really hard to provide for us, to allow me to stay home and help him by answering phones and handling the office-y work, and that I could allow MYSELF a chance to relax a bit. I breathed a big sigh of relief and that "moment" was me settling back into the mom/wife role and focusing on my family first again. That acceptance of taking the weight off my shoulders, giving it to God and letting my soul find peace in my newly defined purpose. 

ALSO CURTIS IS TURNING 40 AND HE WON'T LET ME HAVE A PARTY FOR HIM. SO ALL I CAN DO IS WRITE ABOUT IT HERE AND ON FACEBOOK TOMORROW. HERE IS A PICTURE OF TINY CURTIS FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE. 

He probably won't even read this blog post. :)