Habitats

I think there places that everyone believes they belong and places they don’t. This weekend and beginning to the week has made me think of my habitats. Where do I thrive? What brings me peace? Where do I belong? Am I where God wants me to be or the path he has set for me?

Decades ago I found the peace that being near a lake gives me. Walking around next to water and feeling the spray if the wind is up enough is an almost instant sense of peace. Sitting next to a crackling fire at night is soothing as all get out. When my family went camping this last weekend, it even brought about wonderful conversations between my and Daddy Bear. It was peace, until it wasn’t and then it was time to go home.

A lifetime ago when I was a stay at home mom, I would go to the gym two to three times a week and it became a comfortable atmosphere. This time around the whole healthy gettin’ journey, it gets more comfortable as I go, but its definitely not natural.

I started my radio internship at 17 years old. Almost exactly 20 years ago. I walked into that building full of nerves, but almost instantly had this sense of this is where I belong. I’ve even kept one of the people I met there as one of my best friends, and can’t imagine my life without them. When I started as a board op and set foot into my studio I instantly felt the sense of knowing. I let distraction set in and I walked away for awhile, but then when my family moved back to our hometown (My husband and I) surrounded by a support system, I went back to the station and haven’t doubted my choice at all. This place is my second home. The people in this building are my extended family. This is one of my habitats. Is it possible to have more than one? Now there are some cons to caring this much and having this sense of knowing. I’m a perfectionist by nature. So sometimes when I give my all to my job that I love and don’t give as much love to my other natural habitat, being Mama Bear. I also get so nervous and fear failure to the point where I begin shaking and sometimes my words don’t make sense. I just feel like an utter failure and that I’ve fooled myself into thinking this is what I should be doing and just stop while I don’t make it worse. Then as I feel like a failure and wasting time, I’ll get a compliment from a potential advertiser, that is now an advertiser (my spot helped persuade them) and a new set of business cards and I remember how hard I have worked and how it has paid off to the job that I partly dreamed about in college. Just because its what I love, is it what God wants for me. I’m going to go with yes. I’m praying I’m right, and I just need to maneuver the challenges that come with it. Perfection only exists in Gods love. No where else.

Then there is the habitat of my children’s arms. Holding them, I hold the true reason I believe the Lord has put me on this earth. With their hugs and words speaking “I love you” I feel like I am in the worlds most important assignment and habitat. Again, it comes with a whole lotta work, worry, anxiety, tears, feels of failure and unrealistic/impossible expectation of needing to execute it perfectly. Also, the need to juggle habitats.

Then the challenge I’ve been struggling with. Juggling habitats. The job I love and occasionally great at and have worked so hard to succeed at. The family I have built and “job” of mom that I couldn’t survive without. The rest I guess falls into self care. I doubt anyone doubts my dedication to my job. I think anyone who is a parent falls into the category of feeling like a failure.

Lord, I pray you guide my steps. Thank you beyond words for the incredible blessings you have given me. I’m so sorry I don’t always see my blessings as what they are and that I fail to thank you for them. Please be with all of the people I love. Those that need you. Please Lord, let me succeed at the assignments/habitats you have given me. And thank you Lord, for your perfect love. Amen