Life is messy deal with it. That is my latest and greatest epiphany in my search for wisdom and understanding.

Five years ago if someone would have asked me to reflect upon my life I would have probably answered, “I am very blessed, I love my family and feel like they are my greatest life accomplishment. Financially we are in a good place and we have been able to put our kids through private schools and we feel very lucky.” Although that statement is completely true there are lots of things missing in that tidy little “perfect” assessment.

For instance, sometimes I would like to choke my family. Raising teenagers is the hardest thing in the world. Every time they leave the house you hope and pray they make good decisions. The reality is that even though they are good kids, chances are they are sitting in someone’s basement playing beer pong every Friday night and on Saturday God only knows what they are doing.  They keep their grades up, act respectful, go to work and school and are pretty good kids. But even pretty good kids do stupid things and have to mature the hard way over years of stupid decisions and mistakes.(just as we did)  As parents our role is to make it as hard as possible for them to get away with such behaviors but to also be there to pick up the pieces when they fall.

I look at moms with little kids and cant help but smile and laugh to myself while remembering those days. I had seven kids under the age of 14 and thought that was really tough. Reflecting back I know that those days were a breeze compared to what was to come. It’s a right of passage, all parents deal with teenagers but seven??? What in the hell was I thinking?

The biggest lesson I have learned is not to sweat the small stuff. Every eye roll every shoulder shrug and every bit of attitude I received from my oldest two kids I took as a personal attack. I mean come on..I do so much for these ungrateful creatures and all I get in return is bad attitude. I don’t deserve this. Why don’t they treat their father this way? And speaking of their father, why can’t he understand how awful they treat me. Instead he says, “Just ignore it.” IS HE KIDDING ME? He is with them 10 minutes every day, easy for him to say.

Now that I am on my last two teenagers I actually laugh when I get eye rolls, bad attitude and even a little back talk. I have learned to laugh and say “Honey, you are awfully sassy today.” Why couldn’t I have learned that technique 15 years ago? I guess my biggest lesson I took away from those awful teenage years is that I will take eye rolls over beer pong any day.

Which brings me to the present, if someone would ask me today to reflect on my life, I would probably say; “I am very blessed, I love my family and feel like they are my greatest life accomplishment. Financially we are in a good place and we have been able to put our kids through private schools and we feel very lucky.”

So you see, as much as life has changed it really hasn’t. Of course there are several layers that have not been revealed in that statement. So much has changed in five years but so much has also stayed the same. Change is constant and there is absolutely nothing that we can do to stop it. But what we can do is focus on all the positives in life and what we are truly thankful for.

I don’t care who you are, you will always have things in your life that make you sad. Sometimes it is harder to find things to make you happy in times of despair but they are there, often times they are in plain sight.

I remember in one of my darkest days when my daughter was fighting for her life, her brain surgeon said to me, “Right now we are dealing with many negatives, I am searching for the positives to give you. They are there, but we are going to have to dig deep to find them,” It was his way of saying how grave things were but that there was still hope. It was the beam of light in my darkest day that I needed and I am forever grateful for his positive attitude.

So here is my infinite wisdom in a nutshell. Life is messy, I don’t care who you are. Spending time looking at others lives and wishing yours was that carefree is a waste of time. You never know what battles they face. You have but one life, no matter how unfair your life circumstances are or who is to blame for your set of circumstances it doesn’t matter. Suck it up, hold your head high and enjoy your messy life because it is brilliant and it is yours and more importantly it is still moving and changing. The best is yet to come.