Carpe Diem

Lately the grass has been greener on the other side, and I can't stop staring over the fence at it. I mean, My grass is pretty green too, and there's a garden here, but it hasn't stopped me from staring over the fence wistfully. I have a nasty habit of following rabbit holes on Facebook. I see a post from an old friend, likely from school, and I decide to check out their profile, see what I'm unaware of. Before I know it, I'm years into my scrolling, wishing I'd made different choices so I could have had a chance at the kind of adventures _______ had. And then I'm sad the rest of the day, thinking of everything I missed out on. On the opinions people must have of me.

I'm missing out, therefore, on the beauty that is my own life. There have been some seriously ugly things in my life, but aren't there in everyone's? In a few months Husband, J and I will be moving home to the family farm that Husband is set to inherit, and we will carve out a happy, peaceful, healthy, wholesome life for ourselves. Our days will be full of peaceful productivity, animal care, adventures, learning. I can appreciate these things because of the chaotic pattern of the last several years of my life, of my own creation. God blessed me, turned it all around, and gave me this future, and I should be ashamed to shun it in favor of a life that was intended for and lived by someone else. And so my attitude has changed. I can't say I've stopped comparing my experiences with others, but I've learned to remind myself that God made my sordid history into a chance to appreciate what is to come.

We're going to be farmers. We're going to have a home, with J and possibly/likely more, and G will be visiting and have her own room/bed (if we have more girls she'll share with her sisters), we'll have chickens and cows and pigs, and a garden. We'll have woods so the kids can go crazy and explore. New adventures for kids, the way it should be. I've learned new skills and arts, things that have become lost in today's society. For all I know, none of this would have been possible if I'd chosen differently even once.

We each need to realize (and this can encompass some pretty hefty issues and debates, and a wide variety of those) that we are on the path we were given because it is in God's will. Each path has it's own struggle, and consequences, and circumstances, and choices, and so basing our decisions on other people, and our analyses of other lives, is, simply put, unwise. The whole "grass is greener" thing can be classified very easily: Envy. It's a sin. To be jealous of something that someone else has is not productive, and makes one discontent with the life they were given.  So me looking at old school friends' FB accounts and seeing their adventures and then spending time wistfully regretting past decisions and what I would have done if this WASN'T the path I was on only serves to distract me from this path, and what a wonderful thing it can be, what God has for me, and what wonderful things I can do on it. It's time we each start appreciating who we are as we are, instead of constantly wishing to be someone else, do something else, be somewhere else. Carpe diem, so to speak.