If you’re drowning in discontentment–here’s a life preserver

It’s been a whole year since we moved into our camper to minimize the monthly bills we pay while my husband goes through the rocky start of starting a small business.

I’ve told you before about how I was so ashamed to bring my brand new second baby home to this camper.

We said it would only be a year, but now it’s been a year and a few months with no ending in plain sight. Contentment is a daily battle for me.

I can go weeks at a time being optimistic–encouraging my husband and managing our home well.

But it keeps coming back: that ugly monster of discontentment inside of me. The littlest thing can release it. And I say things I always regret.  Which tells me that I’m not really content at all. I just mask my discontentment for stretches of time.

And it has got to stop.

So I’ve started doing something, an exercise if you will, and if it can pull me out of my ocean of discontentment, then I bet it could help someone else too.

I learned when we took this lengthy survey in premarital counseling that I tend to idealize things. I have a rosy picture of what was and what will be, but obviously the only thing I’m seeing for what it is, for what’s real, is right now. And right now always looks the worst. Knowing this, I have started making three lists whenever I really get down about my life circumstances, and they are the life preserver I need when I’m drowning in discontentment. 

The last season list: The first one is about that last season that I often wish we could go back to–do you do this? Do you think back to when you were dating or the kids were small or the town was right? For us it was living in a two-bedroom apartment with just one baby. It was the nicest place either of us had ever lived, and it’s too easy for me to look back and yearn for it. Like somehow everything was perfect then. But it wasn’t! So I try to list everything that was a struggle for us back then, just to give myself a dose of reality. Here are a few:

• The rent–over a thousand dollars a month that we’d never see again.
• The dog poop. Was. Everywhere. WHY PET-OWNERS, WHY?
• My husband spending roughly three hours in traffic every day to commute to and from work and feeling like he had no where to grow with his job.

The next season list: So, then there’s that season I want to be in. Maybe you have this too–it’s when you make this much money or when your kids are finally old enough to [whatever] or when you can finally live closer to [whoever] so you have the help you think you need. And that looks pretty perfect, too. For us, it’s a profitable business and a house to show for it. But a house comes with its challenges too and I must keep them in mind, so here are a few:

• Yard work, handiwork, up-keep in general–all things we’ve pretty much never had to deal with in our entire married life as apartment (and now camper) dwellers.
• Bills, bills, bills. “House poor” is a phrase for a reason. I hope we’ll be smart enough to avoid this, but all the same, owning a home comes with a LOT of bills that we aren’t used to paying. Like, what’s a property tax?
• Cleaning. I’m certain that I can be more organized once I have more space, but the more square footage I have, the more I’ll have to clean. And I don’t enjoy cleaning, call me crazy.

The thankful for right now list: And then, after reminding myself why the grass is not greener on the other side of anything, I have to list what I’m thankful for right now, in this season. Things I might miss later. Things I love. Here are a few:

• My husband is happy. He loves what he’s doing and he’s doing it so well. He has gifts that blow my mind and I love seeing him put them to work every day. I wouldn’t trade his happiness and fulfillment for all of the money in the world. I wouldn’t.
• I have two crazy cool little boys who will only be this way for a minute. I won’t have a baby and toddler whenever we finally move, I’ll probably have a toddler and a preschooler (WAH!) We’re making memories together right now, and they’re great memories. I don’t want to miss any of it because I’m bent on bitterness.
• Our transient life–right now, I have a sick dad living a plane ride away, and we’re able to go and visit him whenever we need to. We don’t have to think about what we’re leaving behind in our home–there is no yard work to arrange or pets to think about. We just go when we want to.

So there’s your life preserver, friends: three lists that will help you to be realistic and recenter yourself. Make them as long or as short as they need to be. Discontentment will drown the life right out of us if we don’t figure out how to swim in our circumstances.

 

Can you relate? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’d love to pray for you.