Chasing Joy

{Joining with my friend Mel for her first ever link up, Transparent Tuesday. Something all of us need from time to time! Check out her blog for more information and to link up!}

Sometimes I feel like I do many things, but none of them particularly well. A girl of many interests, when passion strikes - I'm sucked in. So I learn to knit and bake and sew and sing and manage to get to a mediocre level of ability before flitting off to the next thing I want to try. I've been this way my whole life. I remember telling my sister as a kid - "I truly believe I can do anything. But I'm really good at nothing."

I am blessed with a variety of friends. The type A types, with impeccably decorated homes and seemingly endless energy for and interest in new modes of organization. The creative types who always have one (or ten) projects going at once and seem immune to stress from the mess.  The active ones, who love pushing themselves to the limit and give every indication of leaping out of bed each day, thrilled with nothing more than running a half marathon before breakfast. The fun ones, with as many kids as possible running through their homes each day while they look on with relaxed enjoyment.

I love and am inspired by each one of them, but often I wonder where on earth I fall in those categories.
It all comes down to choices and priorities. Whether I'm being intentional or not, I'm making choices. The choice to stay up late reading keeps me in bed later into the morning, bumping my workout time out of the picture. The choice to have 6 children in a small home. The choice to knit, or catch up with a friend or watch my babies play. I fool no one but myself when I use my choices as excuses.

Occasionally I am so inspired by a friend that I give their priorities a try. "If she can do it, so can I!" I think, gritting my teeth and trying to shoehorn my multifaceted personality into just one area. It works, for a few days, and then I slip back into old patterns. Because really, this is me.  This is how I live. I'm a little undisciplined and a lot open to living my day as it presents itself. Sure, it could be tidier and quieter. I could be more toned and organized. But I'm a girl who loves falling into a book and emerging hours later. I can be creative when and only when the mood strikes, and when it does, I am helpless to resist. I adore handing out sticky popsicles to a long line of dirty summer kids and shrugging off the ensuing mess. I love long talks with my best friend even if it means that I don't get to the laundry or wind up ordering pizza for dinner.

The world needs all types of people. I'm so blessed by my many friends and their many strengths and abilities and personalities. They inspire, they encourage, they make my world more beautiful and intricate by being their amazing selves.

When I think about it, I realize - I'm a joy chaser. Wherever there is happiness and love and fun, that's where I want to be. I want to live in the center of all things good. Even if that means doing nothing particularly well.

I choose joy.

A little mess, a lot of mayhem, and a heaping dose of  (imperfect) joy.

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