upon the altar

This post is perhaps the most vulnerable I've ever written on blogger.  So don't judge, k?

Once upon a time, I was quite the girl.  I was the Sterling Scholar at Davis High for Speech and Drama.  I was Oratory Captain in the DHS debate team, and I was invited to the national competition and also took third at state.  I was phoned up by a local two-year college with a heavy debate team and offered a scholarship by their coach.  I had a good GPA, and took and passed the AP US History, AP AB Calc, and AP Psych exams, each with a four.  (It's geeky, I know, but it's as cool as I get.)

I went to college on a full-ride scholarship for three years at SUU.  I then applied for a transfer to BYU, and received a one-year full ride scholarship there.  After having the time of my life, I figured it was time to actually get my degree, so I went back to SUU and finished up.  My graduation was summa cum laude.  Where I was the graduation speaker.

Now I'm a stay-at-home mother of two.  And nobody (even, or especially me) cares about a decade ago.  They care about dinner, clean clothes, and getting to watch as much Dora as they want.  I'm not very good at laundry.  I've learned to cook, but the house is usually less than stellar. (Read: I am lucky to find the floor in the girls' rooms.  I have no deep-cleaning schedule.  There's lots of crevices with dirt, which I only really see and think about when someone is at my house and I start feeling mortified.)

Here's the thing: Anything that most SAHMs judge themselves on, I really, really don't do well.  And, mostly, that's fine.  I know I have "other skills," let's just not make a list or anything.

As I look around on facebook, it seems to me that most of my contemporaries want to be doing something "besides" being at home.  So they start in with selling an MLM product.  Or marketing their photography, starting an Etsy shop, or going back to school.  Or something.  And if there's anything that has remained constant about my personality, it's that I don't do anything half-hearted.  If I pursue something, it usually has to be all-or-nothing.  And so (after having a few of these hobbies that never end, and seeing what it does to my family) I've just got to leave things like that alone, or it consumes me.  I get unhappy that my family takes as much time as they do, and unhappy that my hobbies take as much time as they do.  Nobody else is happy, either.  Not the somewhat-neglected kids, not Scott... no one.

Okay.  I've made my peace with that.  No serious hobbies for the present.

But what about someday?  I want to do something someday, and I want to be good at it.  Really good.  I swear I have that in me.  But without knowing what it will be that I'll want to do in, you know, fifteenish, twentyish years, I struggle with feeling like it will really come to fruition. 

I have laid my gift upon the altar, even if it is no more than saying "I won't get all crazy and pursue some hobby that distracts me from being the best mother I can" and I've told the Lord I'll forsake those things until the time is right.  And today, I have great confidence that He really will see my gift for being as wholehearted as it is for me, even if it's small.  And I feel full of assurance that he will bless me richly.

But sometimes,  the vagueness of the future engulfs me, and I wonder if I'm just done.  If my best days, at least in terms of passion, skill, and accomplishment, are over.

Now, please, despite allowing myself to be this vulnerable, I'd rather not hear vague condolences about how wonderfully talented I still am, even if I've given certain things up for the present.  To be blunt, I simply don't believe that right now, so it just feels empty and not-at-all-reassuring.

What is on my mind, what I do churn around somewhat endlessly in my head, is how do we choose faith over fear in a future that seems so flat?