A Feeling

You would think that after 11,964 days on this earth, I would be able to put words to just about every feeling I have. But yesterday, I had one that I just couldn't put my finger on. I didn't like it. I didn't like the feeling, and I didn't like that I couldn't understand what it was. I tried, in spurts and stutters, to explain it to my husband, to think it out loud to my reliable sounding board...most of the words just didn't work, didn't fit. It wasn't a good feeling, but none of the bad descriptors were doing it justice: not really sad, or jealous, or anxious, or lonely, or angry (no, definitely not angry)...

I think I don't like the feeling that I have nothing new to offer the world. Everything I have done, someone else has done before. Everything I write, someone has written. Every time I think I am doing something new...well, it isn't.

There it was. The best I could do to explain this uncomfortable yuckiness in my stomach that somehow radiated out to my fingers and even made my eyes water a bit for a brief moment. Not sure why I was feeling this way, but it really got me.

For hours before and after this conversation, I considered whether I should even bother writing this blog. I am not a writer (heck, I can't even come up with the right word to describe an emotion), and who cares what I have to say? Probably no one, was the answer I landed upon. Really, that train of thought may be what started the "feeling" in the first place. But then John reminded me and I thought again, who am I doing this for?

For me.
For my kids.

For my kids. My Kids.

Then, hours later, it hit me.

Maybe I don't have anything new to offer this world. But I offered this world my kids, and I can offer the world to my kids. Everything is new to them, and while my words may not affect many people in this world, I am the world to my children, especially right now, and every word I say to them affects them. And everything I have to offer is new in their world.

This is kind of hard to wrap my mind around, actually. And the "feeling" isn't entirely gone as I write this. But I realize that, at least for right now, I have to look at life on a different scale and realize my importance in it. I am a mother, and I am a teacher. (And I am more than that, too). I open eyes to the world. And, for now, that is what I have to offer, new or not.