This month, my husband and I are celebrating 46 years of marriage. Maybe that's part of the reason I've been thinking so much lately about life, family, the past, and the things I understand differently at 67 than I did when I was younger.
I've had a good life, but it certainly hasn't been a perfect one.
My childhood was difficult. I've made mistakes as a wife and mother. I've carried fears from the past much longer than I realized. I've had to learn how to forgive, how to ask for help, and how to give myself and other people a little more grace.
But one of the most important things I've learned is this:
A good life doesn't have to be a perfect life.
And perhaps the biggest lesson of all is something I've only really come to understand recently.
The season is now.
For much of my life, I was waiting for another season to be happy. When this problem was solved, when things settled down, when life was easier - then I could be happy.
I don't want to live that way anymore.
In the video below, I'm sharing more of my personal story and seven of the lessons life has taught me along the way.
1. Hard Things Can Shape Us Without Defining Us
I didn't have an easy childhood.
There are parts of that story that I don't need to share publicly because they involve other people and their stories belong to them. But the things we experience when we're young can stay with us much longer than we realize.
Even as a child, I remember telling myself that when I grew up, I wanted to do things differently.
Looking back now, I believe God gave me the strength I needed to get through those years.
Hard experiences shape us. Sometimes they leave us with fears and patterns that aren't helpful. But they can also make us stronger, more determined, more resourceful, and more aware of the kind of person we want to become.
Our past helps shape us, but it doesn't have to decide the rest of our story.
2. Forgiveness Is Something We Do for Ourselves
This may be one of the hardest lessons I've learned.
For many years, I knew I needed to forgive my mother for things that happened during my childhood and for not protecting me in ways I needed to be protected.
Knowing you need to forgive someone and actually being able to do it are two very different things.
About an hour before my mother passed away, I finally prayed to have the courage to forgive her and I did.
It made a difference in me.
I've come to understand that forgiveness isn't really something I do for the other person. Forgiveness is something I need to do for myself.
Forgiving someone doesn't mean that what happened was okay. It doesn't erase the past, and it doesn't mean the hurt never mattered.
It means I don't want to continue carrying that hurt in the same way for the rest of my life.
I can't change yesterday. But I can decide how much of today I'm going to give to it.
3. It's Never Too Late to Ask for Help
My faith and forgiveness have been very important in my life, but that didn't mean everything I carried from childhood simply disappeared.
Eventually, I realized I needed some help.
Therapy has taught me a great deal about myself. It has helped me recognize old fears and understand why I sometimes react the way I do. It has also given me practical tools for those times when my thoughts won't settle and I have trouble sleeping.
But one of the unexpected gifts has been empathy.
We encounter people every day without having the slightest idea what they've experienced.
We don't know what happened in someone's childhood. We don't know what they're dealing with at home. We don't know what loss, fear, disappointment, or worry they may be carrying.
That doesn't mean every behavior is okay.
But it has taught me to try to understand before I judge.
And at 67, I've also learned that we are never too old to work on ourselves.
It's never too late to ask for help. It's never too late to learn. And it's never too late to change.
4. I Didn't Have to Be a Perfect Mother
I went into motherhood determined to give my children something different from what I had experienced.
But wanting to do everything right didn't mean I always did.
There were times I was too judgmental. There were times I was too hard on my children. Some of the fears and experiences I carried from my own childhood affected the way I mothered without me fully realizing it at the time.
I've had to look honestly at that.
Therapy, age, and experience have helped me become a more understanding mother.
Today, I am incredibly grateful for the relationships I have with my children. They have grown into thriving, prosperous, loving people, and I'm very proud of them.
I can't go back and become the perfect mother.
But I can keep becoming a better one.
That's one reason my little motto means so much to me:
POP - Progress Over Perfection.
5. Love Can Grow Through the Years
This month my husband and I celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary.
We've had ups and downs. We've raised a family, faced problems, made mistakes, changed, grown older, and experienced many different seasons of life together.
A long marriage isn't made up of 46 perfect years.
And yet I can honestly say that I love my husband more today than I did when we got married.
As we grow older, our roles change. We need each other in different ways than we once did.
I'm particularly grateful for my health because it allows me to be there for my husband as his needs change.
After nearly half a century together, we're still walking through life side by side.
That's something I don't take for granted.
6. There Is Peace in Having Enough
So much of what I share here at The Common Sense Grandma is about cooking from scratch, meal planning, saving money, stocking the pantry, and making the most of what we have.
But underneath all of those practical things is something I've come to appreciate more as I've gotten older.
Enough is a wonderful thing.
We have a comfortable home.
We have plenty of food.
Our needs are met.
I have my husband, children and grandchildren. I have my health. I have work I enjoy doing. I have people I love and people who love me.
Of course there are things I could still want. There always will be.
But there is a tremendous amount of peace in looking around and realizing, I have enough.
7. The Season Is Now
This may be the lesson I needed the longest to learn.
I have spent much of my life waiting for things or seasons to change before allowing myself to be happy.
When this is over...
When that problem is solved...
When things are easier...
When everything settles down...
Then I'll be happy.
But there will always be something.
If I wait until everything in my life is perfect before I allow myself to enjoy it, I could spend my entire life waiting.
Therapy has helped me understand something that I'm still learning to put into practice:
I have permission to be happy now.
It's okay to be happy.
I don't have to keep looking backward at the past, and I don't have to spend today waiting for some better future.
That doesn't mean difficult things suddenly aren't difficult. Gratitude doesn't mean pretending problems don't exist.
It's about perspective.
Even during hard seasons, there may be something we can learn. There may be something we can appreciate. There may be someone we need to forgive. There may be something about ourselves we can change.
And there is still today.
Choosing What I Dwell On
One Bible verse that has taken on more meaning for me is Philippians 4:8. It reminds us to turn our thoughts toward the things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise.
I don't believe that means we're supposed to pretend painful things never happened.
I can acknowledge my past.
I can learn from it.
I can get help when I need it.
I can recognize my own mistakes.
I can forgive.
And then I can choose not to make the painful parts of my life the place where my mind lives forever.
At 67, I have so much to be grateful for.
I can't change the little girl's childhood.
I can't go back and be a perfect mother.
I can't make 46 years of marriage free from mistakes or difficult seasons.
And I don't know what the future holds.
But I have today.
The season is now.
It's time to live in the present, appreciate what I have, love the people God has given me, forgive what needs forgiving, continue learning - and give myself permission to be happy.
A good life doesn't have to be a perfect life.
I'm very grateful for mine.
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