BOR-ING

Spring break is right around the corner and recently my new six year old thinks life is boring. Haha! You know when you’re in the car and all you hear is, “Are we there yet?”, “How much longer”, “I’m hungry!”, “I have to go the bathroom”, “I’m bored!” I always have to tell myself, Erin be patient, just kidding. I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you just ever be whelmed?? (name that movie).  No seriously though, I think about how whiny we are, and how impatient we can be. I mean these kids have driven across country, but they can’t make it to their grandma’s or their aunt’s house without cryin’.  Sometimes the process is boring. Sometimes life is boring, but my personal opinion is that’s a good thing. I think about social media and how we see the highlight reel. We think man, that persons life is so exciting! Why is my life so boring? When in reality there are those moments in between the highlights that are downright boring. The dishes have to be washed, the laundry folded, the dust bunnies dusted, the crumbs vacuumed. On average we all take a shower and put our underwear on one leg at a time. I think we forget that we are dealing with people, not just the glamour of ones life, but reality is always hidden behind those perfectly curated squares.

This gets me thinking about how we fight against the mundane or how much we resent it. But I have to think that in those moments of habit and routine is where faithfulness and love grow, if we are able to see it. Sometimes bitterness and resentment can blind us, but I just can’t turn a blind eye anymore. You know what’s boring, being extremely pregnant (like, can pop at any moment) and sleeping in a recliner next to your husband in the hospital, snooze fest or maybe not! Another boring thing is driving back home to get the hotdogs your wife forgot, ugh. Ooh and how about home maintenance hanging up hooks, not my idea of a party. Or how about cleaning up your wife’s morning sickness, ooh that’s a rager! Or holding your spouses hand when the doctor says there isn’t a heart beat anymore (I think anyone in that position would want to be anywhere else, but that room). How about when you lock up the house at night and you grab your spouse a cup of water, BORING. Or packing the lunches everyday, cleaning the bathroom, playing catch, doing homework, oh and my personal favorite wiping other people’s booties. But in all seriousness these boring moments that we show up in are the very foundation for something that lasts the test of time if we’re open to see them as opportunities to love and we hold on to them.

It’s so easy to dismiss these moments as whatever, but they’re not. It’s the weaving of these moments into the big ones that sustain us. They’re kind of like the glue. Sometimes life washes over you and it tries to take those moments away or discredit them. But after watching Wrinkle in Time and the moment where Meg recounts all the things that Charles Wallace does to show he loves her, that’s it. It’s these little moments that really show how we feel about others. I say this knowing that a year ago my sister did something I never expected her to do, and I can tell you this I didn’t deserve it. There was nothing I did for her that I would have earned it. And what I think about is our relationship, all the fights, family vacations, late night shenanigans, all the time in the bathroom doing hair and make up, the weekends spent on the soccer field. Those are the moments in our life that tie us together. I don’t remember each little boring detail, but it’s just that, there were a lot of boring moments together that hold us together like gravity. Last year she chose to walk into my life, into the mundane boringness of my life in every moment. It was all of the life we had lived together that caused her to do something completely out of love. I was thinking the other night while I was driving that I’m thankful for the opportunity I got to show up for her. When you truly love selflessly you want to show up. There was no place I would rather be than helping my sister. That time will forever be a moment I look back on and smile, knowing that was the best way to spend my time. The thing that really struck me was that I didn’t do it because I owed her or because I wanted to even things out, but because I love her and her sweet family. The great thing about acting in love is that it not only benefits you. The kids had this moment that added one brick to their foundation as cousins. It’s a moment where they got to bond and deepen their relationship and to be completely honest it blessed my heart to see them love each other.

As I was talking to my sister about Zoë skipping school she said something that we were both thinking. Here we are, two educators saying eh, she can miss school, bad teachers. As I thought about it I told her no, we are good teachers, we are teaching her about life, she is learning a lesson that not a single day in school can teacher her. I’m a big believer in real life experiences and teachable moments. And this was an opportunity for us to teach Zoë a life long lesson. This was one thing we learned from our mom and our aunt. I can’t count how many times they showed up for each other. Family, it’s always there, even when you don’t want it to be, because time can’t erase true love. It’s the boring times with them that grow your roots of love deeper. Some of us try to chop the tree down and others of us hang a swing from a branch and take in the ups and downs of each season weathering the storms and soaking in the sun together.

I think back on our road trip across America. There was nothing grand about it. We sat in the car for hours on end. We made little stops along the way, one stop we were really excited about, but it was kind of a let down. Isn’t that kind of funny, we can be so excited about the destination, but when we get there it’s, meh. That’s why I think it’s so important to hold on to the boring because it’s those small incremental moments that sustain you, it’s what gets you past the meh and on to the next destination knowing that when you hop back in the car you’re sharing the journey with the people you care about most in this world. That sends me thinking about our family trip to the East coast when the cousin twins were 4 months old. Y’all can imagine that, but seriously it was one of the best trips filled with so many great memories (family time, visit to “the mall”, Boston), but we still had to pause to feed the babies, change the diapers, take naps, life doesn’t stop for the big moments either. So needless to say I’ll take all the whining from the backseat. I won’t take for granted what I’ve got, even if it’s boring sometimes. Because boring usually leads to goodness. Maybe the real truth is we can make the boring moments fun. Either way it’s not always about the destination, but the process. I’ll trust the process.