Saturday, December 12, 2009

On Being Ordinary

I have had so many blog posts floating around in my head this week.  Sadly, they pop into my head at the least opportune moments and I just don't have time to get to the computer.  Well, I am here now, so here goes...

I read blog posts on reader and I have a rather long list of blogs that I am watching these days.  I haven't had much reading time lately so the list has gotten rather long.  I skim them quickly and then move on.  Yesterday, I got a chance to do a bit of reading as I have a student teacher who is teaching the entire day until the end of next week.   While it's a great chance to get organized, I decided it also gave me a chance for a little bit of blog reading.

In the huge group of blog entries I had to read yesterday, there was one blog post that really, really stood out to me.  I want to link it here but first I want to ask permission of its author.  It was, essentially, a post in praise of the "ordinary".   The poster comes from a family of people who she perceives to be "extraordinary" and she has felt like the odd one out in the past.  Thankfully, she has come to understand that there is true beauty in the ordinary and she is content to be happy with her life as it is.

This ended up being one of those posts that I would like to print off and put into some kind of journal for myself.  After I had read it, it just kept coming back to me and I couldn't stop reflecting on it.  I think that there is such an important message there, at least for me.  

I can identify with being ordinary.  In a funny way, ordinary is something that I crave.  I love my family tremendously but they are not people you could say are conventional or ordinary.  They have deep passions and have accomplished some very impressive things in their fields.  They are kind and loving.  Growing up, though, I just desperately wanted them to be "normal".  I grew up with a profound sense of not belonging, largely because we were so unusual in the way that my parents chose to live our lives.  I still struggle a bit with shame when I have to explain my parents' choices to people.  Silly, I know, since my mind understands that I was not and am not responsible for my parents' choices and that they shouldn't reflect on me but still, those feelings from childhood and adolescence can be really hard to shake.

On the other hand, I also feel the need to apologize for being so conventional.  I am boring.  There's nothing exciting or dramatic in my life choices.  I like home and family and traditions and comfort.  I don't want to be overly challenged or stretched and I love my little life.  I work with some people who really do exciting, impressive things and I do feel like the little sparrow next to the gorgeous peacocks (an analogy used by my friend in her post).  Motherhood has brought that feel out even more - being surrounded by all of these very ambitious people who are doing great things and I am at a stage of life when just thinking about getting through the work day and getting home to Pk and dh is enough for me.  There isn't time for high flying and drama, my life is full of the mundane and ordinary, endless numbers of meals to cook, stories to read, baths to give, dogs to walk...

And yet, there is something so wonderful to be treasured in all of that.  The poster was right.   It's fun to look at the peacock but we do and then move on.  And yet, who hasn't sat and watched intently at a bird feeder, watching the chickadees or the sparrows, the starlings and the blue jays.  They aren't exciting on first glance but that are truly fascinating to study and they each have a beauty of their own.  To me, my life is like that, too.  There are those beautiful moments buried in the midst of all that ordinary, moments that would be easy to miss but that are really, at least for me, the moments that make life worth living.   Those are the true treasures - my daughter's joy in discovering something new, a half hour of colouring together, seeing the leaves on a tree or the beauty of the snow when walking the dogs, a good conversation with a friend when you need it, a cup of something warm and yummy in the midst of a busy day...

Especially at this time of year so filled with sparkle and noise, what a good time to be reminded to treasure the quiet and to watch for the beauty in the small moments.  Thanks to the poster for helping me to get myself back on track.  I need to get out and buy some birdseed...

1 comment:

  1. I always feel the need to apologize for being ordinary, too, and a little embarrassed by it. So many poeple are doing such interesting things, and me... I am not. But it's partly the stage I am at right now in my life and my children's lives, and partly just who I am. So while I feel funny about it in relation to what I feel like maybe I ought to be living up to, I am mostly fine with it because it IS who I am.

    I will say, though, that your parents need no apologizing for. They are wonderful people. I love them, even if they are unusual, though not so much for the unusual as for their truly good hearts - and that's something you have carried with you from that upbringing, something I would never see changed in you. (Of course, maybe I'm just aquainted with loving strange family memebrs!)

    (And yes you may link at will, love)

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