So the other day I was able to attend my mom's Relief Society Birthday, they always have the best speakers so I decided to go. This time they had a lady by the name of Tayva Patch who played Lucy Mack Smith in Emma Smith: My Story and also in Joseph Smith a Prophet of the Restoration and other LDS films.
I am always intrigued to hear stories of other LDS women and how and why they do what they do. Her story was no different and of course it touched me the same way Anita Stansfields did when I heard her speak.
The biggest thing I got out of it was the fact that before she started having children she was turned down time after time for different films and she eventually had her four kids and it wasn't until they were grown that she went back to school for Filmography and then started getting the roles in movies and TV shows.
She explained that had she not been a mother first, she never would have learned the insights necessary to play the role of Joseph Smith's mother. As she related different experiences it was like a light went off in my head.
How many times have I questioned lately why I am staying home instead of going back to work, why is it so important? I feel like a waste of space, sitting here doing nothing, not proving myself, not showing who I really am, not asserting myself in a world where people must be assertive. And of course not being worth what I'm really worth.
I understand that this is not how it really is, but that is what runs through my head more than not. I so want to go back to school, I want to show myself that I can accomplish something, all the things I have in my head. It's so hard to put them off. Most of the time it drives me crazy, especially watching so many other women be successful at what they do. It's all I can do to remind myself that there is a higher purpose for raising children even if there is no glory in it whatsoever.
I teared up as she recounted the same feelings she'd had while raising her children. It's amazing to me that women can relate so whole heartedly within second just by hearing a similar situation of another. I felt love and admiration for this women who for almost 20 years gave up her dream and thought that it would never come to be, only to find out in her 40's that there was a purpose to her insanity.
So is there a purpose to mine. I have to believe that there is. I have to believe that my Heavenly Father loves me and is mindful of my needs. He has to know how hard it is for me, that being a mother does not come easy for me but that I'm trying to do what is right for me at this time in my life.
Why? I am not sure, I just know that that is what I'm suppose to be doing. Do I lose patience, well lets say I'm not the quietest mother on the block, Patience is not my virtue; and will I ever learn it, probably not. So I go day to day hoping and praying that I will get through this and that there is a greater purpose to my madness.
I love my kids don't get me wrong, I think growing up I had some grandiose picture in my head of what motherhood was going to be like, and then reality hit and then it vanished. The day to day is monotonous, and I often feel like I'm on overkill. There is no pat on the back with a job well done, there is no raise when something is accomplished, and yes seldomly we receive the hug and kiss that makes it all worth while, but it doesn't change the fact that being a mother is the hardest job in the world and any one who says different probably doesn't have a child let alone two or three.
Thank heaven for women out there who have gone before us, who showed us that even when our own dreams are put on hold that it doesn't mean they can't ever happen, it just means not yet!
I know Heavenly Father knows my heart and I'm grateful for his insight that he allows me to have every once in a while.
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