Behind The Curtain Of Our Lives

What’s behind the curtain of your life? What is behind the makeup, the wardrobe, the house decor, this kids, and the marriage?

One thing I always question: “Do my blog posts reflect the true Kristin? Our true life? Our real life?”

The other day, I just had one of those days. A day when we would have been better to just stay home. I’m sure you have had MANY of them. Where nothing really seems to go right and you wonder, “what just happened?”

It was a simple run to the grocery store. I had to get just a handful of items. Mazy started to cry a few steps into the store, but I thought eh, it won’t last long. I gave her the bag of tomatoes to play with (hey, you work with what you got) and after a few minutes, realized okay, maybe that wasn’t the best choice. I was trying to compare prices on things and in all my efforts to save money, I probably picked the more expensive one in the end.

I was striking out on some of the items I needed, while trying to fly through the store with Mazy becoming increasingly upset, as stares and looks were starting to come. After making it to the end, we unloaded our items on the belt, only to be told a few minutes later that I needed to pack my stuff back up and move over to the next lane. By this point, Mazy has completely lost it and has now managed to get her arm caught in the cart. Not just caught, but  stuck.

As I see her look of panic, I had no choice but to just work it through, which was clearly painful as her screams proved. This sweet worker came up and offered her a sucker, as he saw what was unfolding. But at that point, the only comfort was mom’s arms, after I finally was able to pull her arm out. As I tried to wheel my cart back out and into another lane, the sweet man started to grab my things and put them in the lane over, as I was consoling Mazy. At this point, I am about in tears too, trying everything in my power to not just walk out. I realized I could have gotten some of the items cheaper at Aldi, but you know what? At that point, a dollar or 2, or even 3, wasn’t worth it. That, my friends, is very unlike me – I even had to questioned what happened to me?

I walked in the door and Dan had just come home from a meeting. After I tearfully told him about our eventful morning (and at this point I am not sure why I was so succumbed to tears), but he took Mazy outside. A few minutes later, I hear “mommy” and there stood Mazy with a little handful of flowers and a stick poking out. She walked up to me and said “sorry mommy.”

I could have cried all over again.

At that moment, every little frustration went flying out the door.

Mazy has always expressed her emotions very well. She is very good at expressing what she has done wrong, but also how she feels. She looked at me with her beautiful blue eyes, looked into mine, and gave me a hug.

I know you have had FAR worse happen to you, I’m sure. I share this incident with you as more of an illustration in preparation for the story after. You see, that little bouquet of flowers with a large stick in it, wouldn’t have had any meaning, if it wasn’t for what happened earlier that day. That stick is a little resemblance of how our day went. It was an incident that could have ruined the whole bouquet, but I have to look past the little stick and see the beautiful flowers that surrounded it.

Mazy took the time to put that stick in there and to her, it was a beautiful addition. And really, the grocery store incident, I can now say, is beautiful too (for the most part). It taught me a far greater lesson. Our child(ren) can be the best teachers, can’t they? At times there are frustrating moments, but those are what make us who we are. We have those incidents “behind the curtain of our lives” and yet we don’t post about them or talk about them. But let’s be honest. That is REAL life. That is what is behind every curtain of every life, isn’t it? I need to get better at talking about those times too. Something I want to continue to do. Because behind every blog post is a real person with a “real” life and that is who I want you all to see. Stick in the bouquet and all!