Reinvention

Have you ever gotten to a point in your life that you wished to just reinvent yourself? I seem to find that I am now at that point, once again. I must have an internal cycle that gives me this urge to change every so often.

It was about 5 years ago I found myself in this situation. My firstborn was turning one year old and I was tired of how my life was: how I acted, how I dressed, what was important to me. With a shopping spree, courtesy of one of my sisters, I forsook my frumpy, schoolmarm type of clothes for the hip, fitted, cool mom style. I started reading some good books by Christian authors on being a good wife and mother, which in turn helped my attitude to get better. I often read my Bible and had prayer time. I changed my priorities and decided that family was very important to me. I'm sure many noticed the change in me then.

Presently, I am at that point of change, of reinvention, again. In my last post, you read how I have been unsatisfied and lost. This is part of that. I am unsatisfied with myself. I need a change of ME. I am now looking at my life, my family, and deciding what is good about it and what could do with some good changes.

For some time now I have been inspired by all the housewives of generations past. I've wanted to be more like them. However, what that meant for me and how to go about that I was not very sure.

Since having my very first son, and even still now that I have had a second, I have felt different than most of my generation. I have not shared in the thought that for a woman to be something, and be something good, that she must do so outside the home. I have never measured success in terms of what career I have, how much money I make, or what friends I am in a clique with, or how big my house is, or even what my husband does for a living. Success for me is how happy my family is, how well adjusted my children are, how well feed and loved my husband feels, paying the bills with just what we've got, clothing my family with the best bargains and quality I can find...

For the past several years, I thought that I have been pretty successful as far as my standards go. And in truth, I HAVE done a good job. However, when I get to this point of needing change and my reinvention stage, I have to take a good, hard look at things with fresh eyes.

I see things I want to change.

I want my house to be a peaceful one. I find that quite an alarming amount of yelling has gone on in this house since my second son was born. I am not satisfied with things staying that way any more. I want my house to be peaceful, a place of calm, of rational thought and action instead of a place of raging, uncontrolled feeling. I am often heard to say about this: "You have a choice to feel." It means that feelings should not control you; you decide just what you feel. You choose to feel upset about something. You choose to let your emotions rage or not. Emotions are valid; it is a choice how you deal with them. It is time that I practice this motto of mine better, much much better.

I want my house to have order. I want to be better at keeping things clean and picked up. I truly love a clean house. It makes me happy and puts me in a great mood. I just do not like to be the one to clean it ALL the time! That has been my feeling about it for years now. I want to change that now. I've been wasting years complaining about my housewife duties. It's time I get over it, reinvent that part of me, and get happy with keeping things clean MYSELF.

Again, I find I want to change my wardrobe. For two years, since the birth of my second son I have worn nothing but pants. When you find yourself breastfeeding a baby, there's not much practicality in dresses. Now that I am done with that part of Owen's life, I want my dresses back. I have always had an affinity for a pretty dress. I dreamed about the day that they would come back into vogue; that day is here and I couldn't be more ready to reinvent that part of my life!

These are just a few of the things that I will be reinventing. There will be many others, I am sure. Perhaps I shall share them with you again as I follow this, my latest path of reinvention.