Just me

Just me!  Being born as a first child to a family makes it just you for a while.  "Just me" and my mom, or "just me" and my dad.  Then along comes the other children, which makes life even better!  However, they aren't "just me" kids, there are always others around.  My "just me" syndrome was emphasized as I am the only girl in my family.  When people had girls night  it was "just me" and my mom, and since my mom is the only girl, when we visited my grandma it was "just us".  

As history or society would seem to have it, girls generally gravitate more naturally to their mother.  So I spent a lot of time with my great grandparents and grandparents as "just us", and a lot of time with "just me" and my mom.  Fast forward to present day, my husband is the only boy so it's usually "just him" and "just me".  I think this worked out to our advantage, we seem to get each other, seem to not really need much more company than the two of us, which works smashingly well with my introverted tendencies.  So when we attend family functions and it's "just me" and "just him" we often don't really feel connected to anyone.  No one else is the only daughter in law or son in law.  And when I do as society has done and gravitate to my mom it's not a group of sisters coming together....no, it's JUST ME.  

Hunting trips at my house included the majority of my family... so either I went or "just me" and mom stayed home.  I didn't share clothes or fight about makeup or curling irons, it was "Just me" I had my own room, no one wanted to borrow my shoes and they could've cared less about my eyeshadow.  I experienced things, like, brothers using my (expensive, paid for by me) conditioner to slide all over in the tub like it was a water slide park, or finding tampons strung apart as part of GI Joe's parachuting launches off the second level.

These experiences have made my eyes open to different family dynamics.  I don't understand the sister relationship at all, I've never had one.  I do however fully understand the brother relationship because that was my norm, my life.  My husband however can't relate and he thinks that girl relationships are more normal than I do, HA!  

With three girls of our own and two boys, none of our children are able to take our "norm" as their own.  It's interesting watching sisters be sisters.  I see how much fun and how much they will rely on each other as they get older and I can only relate it to the relationship I have with my mom.  I'm so grateful for these three daughters that I get to have as best friends!  I'm so grateful that my two boys will marry and have wives that will be able to "relate" to not being a "Sweat" or laugh together at our silly tendencies or crazy ways.  I'm glad my son's-in-law will be able to sit around and talk about those  Sassy leadership skilled Sweat girls they married.

I love that my husband gets me, he gets it... he understands what it feels like to be a "just me", to not really fit in, and not be uncomfortable with that either.  He was raised with opposite gender domination in his house too HA!, his mom only had a sister and his sisters had each other.  When we got married he thought when I said I was going to Provo that meant my mom had to come... nope it's "just me" I'd say on the phone.  He found it odd that I didn't have to take hours to shop and make up my mind...He, on the other hand takes an extra long time to shop (hehehe). I found it odd so many people were expecting an invitation to attend when we got prom dresses or a wedding dress...the thought had never occurred to me that others would want to come, you see at my house it was majorly boring so "just me" and mom would do those things by ourselves.

I'm grateful for the things in life that help you realize what you want.  The way people treat you that makes you think... I don't want to be like that, or I love them and I want to emulate those characteristics.  I love being "just me", but not a lot of people understand this personality type.  I don't like to shop with other people, I don't love to do a lot of things girls love to do. When the guys go hunting or shoot guns and the girls are supposed to shop, or darn socks, or whatever they do...I really HATE being labeled in the girl group.  When the guys leave the table and the women clean up... I really feel like I've been betrayed (LOL)! I love being a wife, a mother, a girl... but sometimes those things that are supposed to be my ROLE, don't come very naturally to me.  I don't want to make small talk and shoot the breeze most days, I get really overwhelmed when I've had too much people interaction in a week.  Most times I want to have some "Just me" time.

When Shelby got married her sisters wanted to go wedding dress shopping... this was foreign territory for me.  Why do we need an entourage?  But I've learned in all this gender diversion that there isn't a right or a wrong we're just different!  I'm grateful to have amazing Sister's -in-law and Brother's-in-law.  To be the "Favorite" daughter in law, and to be able to write Sweat on our things and everyone knows their ours LOL! I'm grateful to be able to go wedding dress shop with nieces, to kayak with nephews and to experience all the different things I get to being "just me". I love that we get to introduce our "normal" to those our children choose as spouses.  This life is crazy and I'm so happy I get to be "just me"

Same God

It amazes me, the same God that answers the prayers of the woman who desperately needs help with her down syndrome baby, and creates a program that gets passed by the state to fund things for down syndrome kids, is the same God that answers the prayers of the mother who desperately wants to rely on her own efforts and not have any government dependency at all.  The God that helps a coach rally his team and win a game is the same God that speaks to another that their spending too much time with sports, and helps them to direct their paths to other things.

It is such a testament to me that God lives! He loves us Individually!! He cares about what we want and what is important to each of us. The mother who home schools her kids and wants to bake bread and raise a garden,  and the mother whose kids attend a private school and works in an office in the corporate world, to the mother who is PTA president participates actively in her children's school and helps other children around her. He loves us all, no matter our choices, our differences, and he helps us and leads us and answers our prayers.

He wants us to have the righteous desires of our hearts. That doesn't mean that if we wish our neighbors dog would die it'll happen, or if you dislike your kids soccer coach they'll magically get a new one. Just like the apostles, some wanted to merely be with The Lord and he told them their desires were good and they were given the desires of their hearts,  and yet John desired to tarry on Earth until the Lord comes again, and the Lord told him this was a righteous desire as well.  No shun, no shame in different desires. God is merciful!

We have to do our part, and we should ask him if our desires are in the right priority, but I know He cares! He loves us and He listens to us and knows our desires. It is our job to align our will with His. This is a never ending process and one I'm sure I've failed at more times than I care to admit.  I've judged people for their desires as they weren't my own, and I have so far to go, I'm so far from perfect. The fact that God sees our hearts and knows them is such an amazing thing to me and makes me want to be better, to try harder and to see others as God sees them.  To not compare and to let others righteous desires be theirs.

Sometimes guilty pleasures sneak up on us.  Sometimes I binge watch Gilmore girls til the wee hours of the morning, sometimes I do genealogy, sometimes I'm ever so faithful to schedules and priorities, sometimes I just want to eat chocolate and pretend I'm not an adult anymore.  I think that's the beauty of mortality.....experiencing it all.  If we don't know pain we can't know joy. I'm ever so grateful for a Father in Heaven that loves me, that knows my heart and each of yours.  The awe that fills my mind when I think about how the person that I don't see eye to eye with or that might annoy me, is loved by my Father in Heaven, is glorious!  It's masterful...His plan!