When Did Life Get So Hard?

When did life get so hard?


When did life switch from being fun and enjoyable to being hard? Where is that line in the sand where once you stepped over, you not had to begin carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? I'm a huge news junkie and can't miss the news. I have to watch it 2x a day most days, just to 'keep up to date'. Ya never know what happened between noon news and 5pm news that could greatly affect your life, safety or happiness. Yep, I need to keep up to date. As I was watching the news last night, it was story after story of despair. A mother/grandmother shot and killed. Tara Grant murdered and mutilated by her husband, leaving behind 2 small children. Unemployment rates skyrocket in our state. A jetliner crashes today and kills 21. The distress around us never seems to stop. Bills pile up. People get more rude. Life just gets harder.

Where did our innocence go? When I look at my kids as they sit on the floor going through an old box of pictures, laughing at how they looked as babies or talking about the toys they used to have, I'm reminded of the joys of being a child. Life was easy. Nothing really phased us. Our friends and neighbors moved away and life went on. By the end of summer, we had new friends. Our biggest financial concern was how much money the tooth fairy would bring us for our newly lost tooth. Our biggest daily concern was that we had to clean our room or figure out our math homework. Life was so easy. When did that change? High school didn't change it because life didn't get more hard. More complicated, yes, but not more 'hard'. College didn't change it really, as it was a blow off in a lot of ways. I don't know when I woke up one day and life became different. I don't know when challenges started controlling my life, my joy, my peace. I don't know when it was that I crossed that line in the sand that said "You've grown up and your in a different place now". There are so many days that I still feel too young to have been married for 11 years and have 5 kids. I have days that I feel inside me that I can't POSSIBLY be older than 21. Maybe that's part of me that is longing for the simpler, more peaceful life. Maybe it's me hoping that someday things in this world will get easier. But will they? I want to find that line in the sand and step back over it into the day before things became 'real'. I want to go back and start smelling the roses again. I want to play in the rain. I want to spend time on the phone with friends, talking about the loves of our life and how silly they are. Last week I wrote about what I'd tell myself if I could meet "ME" as a teenager. Now I want to tell "ME" what my teenager self would tell me.

1. Make time to be your with friends.

2. Don't take life too seriously. Find time to do the little things.

3. Sleep is good. Get LOTS of it

4. Don't worry so much abou ta perfect house (bedroom). Messes are ok.