Life On Hold - Lesson One, what's for dinner?

     When one's life is on hold for others, they probably don't go more than three hours without thinking about food.  From infant, to baby, to child into adulthood, the process of being fed is a really big, really time consuming process.  Over the roughly 43,680 hours I've spent thinking, shopping, preparing and cleaning up food for those I love, I've learned a couple of things.  Strangely though, the most significant thing is about oxygen.
     My daughter recently came home from college, where she had a class on nutrition.  After discussing something, she asked me, "how do you know so much- you didn't study it in school did you?"  No Jessica, I got a real life course at the cost of 43,680 life hours!!  And through that one learns a lot about what people need.  They need dinner.  And not just food, they need dinner.  Walking into your house after a busy, crazy day out in the world, and smelling dinner speaks volumes, saying your are loved.  You are home. 
     I've learned that if you go very long without a meal that includes parts - part vegetable, part starch, part meat, part fruit, etc. then the stress level of the entire house goes up.  I've learned that there is something about a meal that fills an emotional need.
     I've also learned that it is a lot of work to do that meal after meal, day after day, year after year.  And rarely, because every day it is on the table, does it really even get any attention.  Generally it is only the lack of keeping people fed that causes attention- negative, stressful attention.  I've come to realize that meals are just like oxygen.  Taken for granted until they're not there. 
     As I've pondered the immensely important role it is to provide a simple, life-giving element, I've discovered something else - it doesn't feel that fulfilling being oxygen. I feel like it would be so much more fulfilling being a firework. 
     As humans we are not generally that happy, content, fulfilled giving the basics of life.  Even if that gift stabilizes the lives of those we love and allows them to grow and live and be.  It's almost like the more important our efforts are in the successful lives of others, the less we feel fulfilled by it.  We have to remind ourselves that what we are doing is important. We know in our souls that the lives of those we love would crash and leave scars and pain if we were not there giving, and yet we still long to be the firework: big, beautiful, loud, center of attention.
     What is it about our human nature that makes us think that everyone all around us has to look and say "aughh" to make us feel important?  Even when you logically know it's the opposite?  Why in the world does providing the basics of life not feel important?  It doesn't make sense, yet there it is.
     What I've learned through a life of providing that basic element of food, is that sometimes how much you "feel" important isn't really an true indicator of how important you really are. 

Life On Hold- introduction

     One day, sometime in the 1990 decade, about the time the kids were getting home from school and the house was getting crazy, on Oprah in the background of the kitchen chaos, I heard the phrase, "it's just that my life's on hold".  I don't really remember what the show was about, but I do remember her frustration.  In those few moments, when I didn't really have the time or attention to process much, I remember thinking, "boy can I relate"!
     At 11 years old, my parents divorced and as the oldest daughter with five younger siblings, my childhood was a lot of taking care of others needs.  I was married at 20, and at 22 two months pregnant as I graduated from college.  Thirteen month after the birth of my first baby came baby number 2.  With a husband starting his career, and then his own business, moves, and three more babies along the way - my life defined- was keeping up with the needs of my family. 
     Yet it surprised me that weeks later, thinking about this "life on hold" comment, what was haunting me wasn't my life waiting to be lived with me as the main character.  Instead it was the question that a "life on hold", or one where the primary concern was the happiness and welfare of someone else, was somehow less fulfilling, less important, less of a life than one lived primarily for themselves with their own agendas and goals.
     I pondered that question for a long time, and while I never actually answered that question, I did discover many beautiful life lessons I have learned not despite the fact that my life was on hold, but as a direct result of having a life on hold!
     So I will attempt to share lessons I've learned from my "life on hold".

Ready, Set, Jump

One thing you should know about me is that I am much better at just jumping, then getting ready to, and figuring out how to jump.  BUT, in this world of technology, it's all about figuring it out.  Unfortunitely a slow and cumbersome process for me.  But I have learned that sometimes you just need to dive in, and figure it out as you go along.  So here I am, doing just that.