Lessons from a couch….

 

I have been a crazy lady lately.  Between running kids to a million things and work projects I’m trying to complete, I feel like I’m totally out of touch.  We are a family that tries to spend time together and that eats dinner together as much as we can, but even that has fallen by the wayside.  When everything starts to spin out of control I become the mom and wife that no one wants to be around.  I’m short-tempered and “screamy.”  The other night was no different, homework to be done,  kids needing to be picked up, and then with one little visual cue my butt was kicked back into place.

My youngest son was feeling a bit under the weather and I was standing next to the couch as he sat down to relax for a minute.   We have a big sectional and as he sat at one end I looked up at the other end.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I looked at the big cushions, the blanket, and the creases in the leather.  Tears filled my eyes.  How can a couch trigger such an emotional response?  IT’S A COUCH!!  But there I was looking at our big leather sectional with my favorite red plaid wool blanket draped over the side and the big squishy buffalo check pillow nestled in the corner, and tears flowed.  I looked away because I knew that my son was going to notice.   Although he probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it because I’m a crier,nonetheless it was odd and I was a bit shocked.   You see, in that moment I realized that this image was home.

Home, those four little letters that mean everything to me, my husband, and our kids. Home is where we sit on those cushions and have family movie night.  Home is where we order pizza and sprawl out wrapped up in those blankets. Home is where I sit and stare at the Christmas lights during the holidays.  Home is where I nurse the kids when they are sick, or injured.  Home is where I sip wine by the fire with my number one guy when the kids are off doing their things. It’s the place where we are all safe, and comforted by one another when we are at our most vulnerable.  Home is where I mourned the loss of my mother, and celebrated the birth of my children.  It’s where we invite our friends to have great food and cocktails, and have hosted too many family gatherings to count.  It is peace and quiet, it can be loud with dogs barking.  It is the place that I would choose to go even if I could choose anywhere in the world. It is warm blankets, and warm food. It is summer nights and fire pits.  It is laughter and it is tears.  It is everything happy and everything sad.  It is comforting the kids after a break up, or comforting them when they get cut from a team.  It is green grass in the summer and snow in the winter.  It is deer and turkeys running in the woods out our back windows.

There it was, one little blanket and one little pillow, and all of these thoughts and emotions rushed through me like a flood.  I could hardly breathe.  When life throws you a curve, remember what is right in front of you.  It is not the stuff, it is the moments, and the voices inside your walls.  It is the late night talks and the breaking of bread.  It is the smile that you bring to those around you, and they to you. I’m sure the word home means many different things to all of us, but I am so glad that I looked up and for whatever reason something as simple as a couch made me remember that this too shall pass. All of the crazy will calm, and life will return to normal.  The big things will seem little, and the little things we’ll realize are quite big, things like sitting down at a table for dinner.

One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou.  She wrote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  I want my family to remember how I made them feel.  I don’t want to be short-tempered and yell.  I want to look up at my couch and remember that it houses the most important people in the world, and honestly, what else is there? I got all of this from a couch, a simple brown couch.   I guess I should be thankful for the cold that my son had, or I may not have stopped.  I may have missed the lesson from a couch.  I hope that the people around me never forget what they mean to me.  I hope they know the deep and great love that I feel for them, and how much I appreciate the love they have for me.

For now, I’m going to leave the dishes in the sink, the laundry in the dryer, and I am going to go sit down in my favorite spot, cover myself with my favorite blanket and chat with my favorite daughter so that she knows, this little moment is more important.

What lessons are the things around you trying to teach you today?  Stop and listen.  See what you are missing.  They are there, and they are significant.  Those are my thoughts today, friends.  Peace and love.

xoxo Deb