Understanding a Car Crash: A Metaphor for Life

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I have this dream sometimes. While driving to work, I pass a car accident. A mangled mess of a car. Everyone in front of me slows down to look at the destruction. To see the tangled metal and the melted plastic. Each car navigates around the chunks of debris strewn across the highway. That is when I realize this is a metaphor for life. I am the mangled mess of a car that everyone slows down to watch.

Pictures that seem to show us put together, that don’t show the ketchup stains all over their shirts. You don’t see the clean towels piled up near the laundry room that haven’t been folded and put away. The car with daycare sheets filling up the backseat (because how many scribble art pages can I bring into the house?!). The mudroom overgrown with shoes—some matched, some not. Coats falling off hooks. Tears on their faces from the “mean mom” that I am (because taking a shower is an awful request, right?).

Laundry_RoomSometimes trying to live up to the perfection of everyone else around us is like drowning. And then you crash—and everyone slows down to watch you fall apart. It happens gradually, or it happens all at once. But either way, moms stand by and think, We have all been there, but very few stop to help you pick up the pieces.

Moms pride themselves in a put-together house, adorable kids, agendas packed with activities. The other day I looked in the fridge to make dinner. We had next to nothing ready to go. Nothing thawed out and it was already 6:30. I am not put together. I try to plan ahead so things like this don’t happen. But if I spend too much time thinking about the future, I forget to think about the present. My strength is not in planning ahead. I am a roll-with-the-punches kind of gal. To top it off I need to plan ahead for my full-time job, and then I have to plan ahead for my full-time mommy gig. Drowning. Crashing. Melting.

Holiday season tends to be when most crashes happen. We all want everything to be special. To be perfect. But mostly—internally—we all just want to survive. So this holiday season I have one request for my fellow moms out there. Moms with older kids, moms who have grandkids now, moms with littler ones, new moms. Don’t just slow down to watch others crash. Stop and help them pick up those pieces. Chat with the mom struggling to get out of the toy aisle while littles make wish lists for Santa. Smile at the mom in the grocery store juggling the dinner list and the kids who want to run in the opposite direction. Hug your friends when you see them down and out. Perform random acts of kindness. Do something this holiday season to help pick someone else up off the highway.

Perfection is only a glossy magazine picture. Real life is not perfection. Real life is the highway— fast-paced, ever-changing. And we can all survive if we work together.

Tell us about your most recent mommy crash moment.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Congrats on your upcomming anniversary.. Its hard to conceive that you both have poured your efforts and many talents for two years plus developing this sight.. what a wonderful resource for the moms of the world .. proud of you both, especially of Sarah.. of course Im pretty prejudice about my daughters..You are both Beka and Sarah super moms.. and you should be touring with the “Super Heroes “

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