Hi, it’s me, your super-inconsistent, ADHD, hyper focusing internet friend. It’s been forever since I’ve posted a podcast episode, forever since I’ve posted an article on here. Mostly it’s because, well… I just realized how incredibly insignificant and unimportant I am. Not in a self pity kind of way just like an existential understanding of how dang insignificant we are. So, to be completely honest I’m just writing for myself. I don’t care if anyone sees this or reads it. I am an outward processor.
Anyways - over the past few months I have just painfully realized my opinions, your opinions, anyones opinions don’t matter. God’s do. My point of view doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. All that matter’s is God’s perspective of things and leaning into that.
I’ll be the first to admit I have a temperance problem. I go hard in the paint on anything I do. I guess that’s hyper focusing. Dopamine addiction. Social media doesn’t help it and doesn’t do me any good. I’ve realized that. But I do like to talk, meet people, blab, deep dive so Instagram was the place I did that.
Until I realized I was legit addicted to the app. My fingers would instinctively swipe right to it. I deleted it off my home screen and then would just search and find it anyways.
I justify it. “I’m lonely” “this is the only way people keep in touch with me”. Both are true, I guess. However, when I snapped at a tiny human I created out of my womb “just a MINUTE I am BUSY”… busy doing what exactly? Watching a strangers IG stories. That’s what.
So I took a break from December-mid January. Full on deactivated IG because it’s more of a hurdle to have to log in, verify with your email, reactivate than it is to just log in. I needed the extra hurdle bc… addicted to dopamine.
Life changing.
And then.. the inauguration happened. I was… hype. I wanted to watch others experience it. To be honest I had never watched for cared before now to deep dive all things transition, confirmations, and inauguration. It was like a soap opera, reality TV show, USA politics style.
So, I jumped back on.
Almost immediately I was sucked back in. I’m not proud of it. In fact, I went to confession for it. Not because using social media is inherently bad (although I’ve got a whole post I’m going to write about a lot of the super bad stuff about it that I can read and re-read to remind myself to get off it) but because I know I struggle with vanity and temperance.
I always feel like I have to clarify what I mean by vanity. (You can read what I mean by vanity here). TLDR - I struggle with caring more about what other’s think of me than what God thinks of me).
The reality of it is - when I’m on that stupid app it sucks up precious time, energy, and mental & emotional resources that I should be spending with my family and on people I am close to.
Some brilliant saint (Aquinas? Augustine? IDK) said that our priorities should be God > Self > Marriage > Children > Family > Extended Family > Parish/Neighbors > City > State > Country > Then the rest of the world. Something like that, you get the idea. But for me, social media made it something like Self > Strangers/Rest of the World > Family > Marriage ………. GOD. How warped and wrong.
Right now in this phase of life with 7-11 year olds - they need me SO much emotionally and mentally than they ever have and I know that will only get more intense as they become teens and I don’t want them to think that my phone or strangers on the internet are EVER more important than them and their emotional, mental or spiritual needs.
So, for the update for people who care. We’re still in Spain. We have 17 months left, but who is counting? JK. We’re not unhappy here but since living abroad and experiencing some family losses, people we loving having a hard time it made us realize how much we desire to be closer so that we can be there for the people we love.
My husband is still gone a lot but since prob half of last year’s work trips were training to be able to do his current job, it’s much less travel than last year. He was still gone most of January but thankfully we get a reprieve for a bit in the next few months.
Both of our cars managed to break - that’s a whole thing. Someone, thank God, gave my husband a 2003 beater for $20 right before they moved back to the states and no kidding, gave it to us 2.5 weeks before both of the cars we owned bit the bullet - so my husband does have a way to get to and from work and the car can fit all 6 of us - extremely cramped and with no room for anything extra but it does fit all 6 of us. God knew. Praise His name. The school has a bus service we got hooked up with and the US pays for it, again - thank God. So, I’m essentially vehicle-less but there are a lot of bus stops close to me that can take me into our small town if I really need to.
The car my husband just bought when we moved here is completely totaled (metal shards in the engine and will cost way more to fix or replace than the car is worth) so that’s 10,000 euros down the drain in a year. Yeah, not my favorite. My radiator on Olaf (the white minivan we brought in the frozen tundra of NY in 2017) crapped out and NO ONE here would work on, order parts for, or fix an american minivan. My husband recently DIY/YouTube degree replaced the radiator after almost 5 months of it not working but we’re still monitoring it for leaks so I’m not yet driving it.
The kids are really taking off with their Spanish speaking. It’s been so cool to witness. They make fun of me all the time because their accents are so much better and I sound “blanca”. I am white. Hi. Have you seen my almost translucent skin? Sue me for not being able to roll my R’s.
They’re all thriving in school. Making friends. Managing their social calendars is a whole full time job. But, this is what we wanted. To make international friends, experience Spanish culture, and learn Spanish. Check, check, check!
We definitely aren’t traveling as much as we had hoped. My husband always goes on work trips to really, middle of no where locations that are extremely difficult to get to without renting a huge car for like 200 euro a day to drive the 6 of us around and it’s just not financially responsible. When he isn’t traveling which is not too often, we either have visitors (praise God) or he doesn’t want to travel in the few days between work travels - and I can’t blame him. Add to that the not-working cars and it makes traveling to smaller, adorable Spanish towns difficult because you need a car to get there/get around.
All in all, I guess the expectations of living here vs reality have been off. Honestly, I don’t think I would have pushed for this experience if I didn’t have the rose colored glasses I had when moving here but then we wouldn’t have been stretched, purified, and blessed with the people we have met and things we have experienced since moving here. I could wallow in the not-so-stellar things or just praise Him for his goodness. We’re going to choose praise.
When we moved here we didn’t ask the Lord to move us to Spain. The prayer was, “Lord, we want to move to Spain but even more so we want you to move us wherever will draw us closer to you.” And He’s answering prayers. Painfully, often - like leading us to the desert so that we desperately thirst for Him. So that we surrender all control and depend fully on Him. Truth be told, I’m kinda in the desert part spiritually and less in the “He is so good and quenching my thirst” area but… I trust the process because I’ve been here before and He has always provided in the exact way I needed. Always purified the areas I needed to work on. It’s just hard to see through the fog when you’re in it. Eventually the Son shines its glorious face and the fog disappears. Sometimes it takes the fog for us to appreciate the Son. Right now it’s foggy - and that’s okay because for now I trust. And wait.