Day 12: I believe in being real

I minored in Marriage & Family Studies. It's a major for people who go on to be marriage & family councilors. 

I started taking classes from this discipline because I felt that I was inadequate as a newlywed from a divorced family. 

In my very first marriage class my teacher said something that I will never forget. 

"There will come a time in every marriage when you will think about getting a divorce."

I was shocked!

It was that tiny word 'every' that floored me. 

You see, I had thought that there were two types of marriages: good ones and bad ones. 

I thought that I had seen bad marriages.

I could picture certain people from church who had good ones. 

This was a pivotal moment for me. 

Like I said, I was a newlywed and had yet to experience the "divorce thoughts" that come after a big fight.

I truly know that had I not learned that 'every'one had those thoughts, I would have gotten into some big fight with Jordan, probably over whether or not 1% or 2% milk was better (no, really.) and I would have thought 'divorce'. 

Then I would have thought "oh. my. gosh. my marriage is a bad one. there is no point in trying to make it work. I should cut my losses and get the divorce over with so I can move on and try to find "a good one."

You might be thinking to yourself "Isabelle must be really dumb, cause no body is that ignorant about marriage relationships and issues." 

*Note: I was always that kids in class who wasn't afraid to raise my hand and ask for further explanation because I knew that if I was confused then chances were good that I wasn't the only one. 

I realize now, that there is no such thing as good or bad marriages. 

They are all good and bad. 

The secret is to stick through the bad and then you have some good. 

And then stick through the bad and then you have some good. 

Repeat for 50 or 60 or 70 years.

................................

I have this friend. We are better friends in the blog/facebook world then in the real world.

She is really inspiring.
She is always really honest about her feelings about her body, her home and her life in general.
She is the kind of gal that other woman look up to.
She is super fun and has a great sense of humor.
Not to mention a great husband, 4 cutie-patootie boys and is an absolute knock-out.
She has this confidence about her that draws me to her. (this sounds weird but I mean it in the most normal way possible.)

Anyway....
She started this new blog about trying to become better.
She set some goals.
and they are beautiful goals.
they are real goals.

I feel like she is every woman who had ever tried to be a little better.
They are goals about the home and fitness and about being a great mom and wife.

...........

So today on 30 day blogger challenge is "what you believe".

Well I believe in a lot. I don't believe in a lot too. 

But I firmly believe that if we (especially woman) would be real about the issues we are facing and not try to hide them and act like we have perfect lives, then other people would realize that they are normal.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 

"What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” 

                                                                                                                      ― C.S. Lewis

We are all normal.

We are not good ones or bad ones.

We don't have good marriages or bad marriages. 

We just have marriages. 

We aren't good mothers or bad mothers.

We are just mothers. 

We all deal with the same issues. We all feel the same way. We just try to hide it and then we all walk around like "man, i have all these issues and no one else does." 

No. 

We all just pretends like we don't have the same issues that we all have. 

.....................

My friend inspired me with her goals. 

She inspired me with her realness. 

She inspired me by not hiding her issues, but by sharing them openly so that we all could say 

"you too? I thought I was the only one."

....................

At the end of her post, she encourages her readers to write their own list of goals and to join her on this 6 months to awesome challenge. 

"entry one: affirmation statement.write down what you want. who you want to be. the goals you want to make. it can be as long, or short as you want. it's totally up to you." 

Here are mine:

I want to scream less at my children.
I want to play more with them. Actually pretend with them and play on the floor with them.
I want to wake up before 10 in the morning.
I want to be comfortable in my body.
I want to feed my family something other then cereal for dinner.
I want to remember to brush my children's teeth daily. Daily.
I want to smile and laugh more often.
I want to dance more.
I want to enjoy the seemingly mundane of life.
I want to study the scriptures daily.
I want to worship at the temple once a month.

I want to read more books.

I want to stop caring about the mess and start caring about enjoying myself and my family.

I want to be less stressed in general.

It's a start.

...................

I don't know that all this rambling makes sense to anyone but me. (It will make sense to my sisters, they can follow my train of thought.)

But for everyone else,
I hope that you understood that I believe in not making other people feel like their normal life is a "bad one", by pretending like your normal life is a "good one".

Lets all just agree that our lives are filled with both good and bad.

They are all just normal ones.