What is in a name?


One Saturday morning while I was sleeping in, my husband was doing laundry.  

Yes, my awesome husband actually lets me sleep in on Saturdays and sometimes even does the laundry! 

He was about to transfer the clothes
 from the washer to the dryer when he noticed a stray thread among the clothes.  He pulled the thread thinking it would come free easily.  Instead it cinched tight around a wet T-shirt.  With, persistence and a small amount of brute force he managed to free the entangled shirt,  only to find that once it was free, the thread kept coming and coming until it snagged on another wet article. This process was repeated several times until sufficient thread and clothes were removed from the washer to locate the source of his misfortune.  A small shiny sewing machine bobbin still wound half full sat at the bottom of the tub. 

I have since reflected on how symbolic that little bobbin was. It had been wound with my best intentions to sew and create.  I put it in a safe place, or so I thought.  However, somehow it ended up at the bottom of that washer leaving my husband to make sense of the mess.  Our lives are a collection of bobbins, each wound full with the thread of our good intentions, our aspirations, our dreams.  

With three children, a husband, house, hobbies, friends, etc. I have what feels like buckets of these "life bobbins".  Each one is precious, but I find if I try to hold too many at once, one or more will inevitably fall and roll across the floor trailing thread behind it.  So I set some aside, I shift my focus for a while, telling myself I'll pick them up again as soon as I can.  It is an intricate balancing act requiring great focus. 

Sadly, I struggle to maintain balance and focus.  Far too often the bobbins perched on shelves or tucked into a pockets for safe keeping make their way into the washing machine of reality where all good intentions unwind into a chaotic tangle leaving one struggling to salvage what is left.  This is my journey to try and create order in the chaos.  An attempt to discover balance, maintain focus, and find harmony in being mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter, and just me.