Can't Keep Up

I have a confession.  I am a wanna-be homesteader.  I love the idea of farm living, living off the land and the freedom that comes from self-sustainability.  Perhaps it's the work involved that holds me back. Or the fact that chickens are a definite no-no in our neighborhood.  (HOA holding me back) Or that I can't seem to keep my garden alive, as hard as I try, as much as I read, and as hard as my husband preps the garden (as I watch from the window).  Those little plants always die.

So I try to do things they do, you know, low-key effort.  Like follow the recipes and I read the books.  I follow the blogs, these famous folks on Facebook, Pinterest, etc, but I'm finding...

I can't keep up.

As soon as I finally found a french press for my organic fair trade coffee, appropriately ground of course at the Costco, and as I'm sipping the best dang coffee I've ever had in my whole dang life, I read they are roasting and grinding their own beans.  What the heck?

I find and use my own homemade deodorant, the husband still not on board, but my mama is and has her Zumba instructor using it and singing it's praises.  I sweat like a beast and don't have any odor.  (Both of those held in tandem are truly amazing.) Then I read they also make their own personal hygiene products. For down there.  I don't care who you are, that's intense.

I do a good job at buying my two-pack of chicken from Costco, roast it, make the broth (including dumping that "stuff" in that baggie from the inside of the chicken- you know- the stuff you don't want to look at but they say you need to eat it.  They scoff at wasting it…so I do it.  Yeah, please don't tell my family.)

Then I read they have a so-called "butcher day"- they butcher their own chickens- their named chickens!  That right there is over-the-top- eating your pets?  Committed.

I buy the safe kinds of cleaner, because you know, once you start down this bunny trail, you just can't stop.  You learn about cleaners, safety, and you think of your husband growing man boobs and a softer voice, and even thinking of him going through that terrifies you. You realize with three females in this house there is no room at the inn.  (As much as we do love our estrogen.)

Then you read these Suzie Homemakers are making their own cleaner, from their filtered urine, just to be ready in case of a zombie apocalypse.  (I made that up, but I'm sure someone out there has thought of that genius idea.)

I ask my husband to find healthy meds for the girls- you know- for the occasional cough, cold, what have you.  We find the natural ones.  I'm feeling good.  These women are harvesting their own herbals in their multi-acre gardens to concoct their own formulas with their mortar and pestles.  They even found unicorn tears to add, only the best for their little girls.

So there you have it, folks.  I admire them but I cannot keep up.

As a matter of fact, one of the biggest reasons I love homeschool is my children are on their own path, studying where they need to be, at their own speed.  The only standard of comparison is their yearly testing- my report card- which only my husband and I see.

But sometimes, dear friends, doubt sets in.  I look around me- I'm friends with all walks of life.  I don't look like anyone else.  While I usually maintain a steady pace running with my callings, sometimes (lean in for this one real close), sometimes I look around and question.  Too liberal for this group, too conservative for this one, too fixy for one, too frugal for this one. (Expensive people are hard to keep up with and have a different language)

Y'all, I love all my people but I'm not a groupie.  

I humbly accept the fact that I am an individual.  My God is a relationship.  My remade identity.  My path with Him is a beautiful one, set apart from the entire world, with identity crisis's built it, so that I may look to Him.  I turn to His face daily and ask for some guidance.  He turns to me and says He's so glad I asked, He smiles, I feel His love and peace, and He always answers.

While I love to look around and admire His beauty in those around me, their stories, their lives, it's meant to reflect His glory.  To criticize someone's path is a reflection on my heart- a shifting of confidence from the eternal to the temporary.  When my path is criticized, I pray He shoots an arrows straight to my heart, "Carla, you are made for more." (Or the one he told me just yesterday was, "Consider the source- lack of confidence in Me."  God, I'll humbly take it.)

So I'll keep marching, running, sometimes crawling to the beat of my own drum (with my homemade deodorant smeared on my pits).  It's more fun to dance like no one's watching anyway.