my life is breaking tradition right now.
i have quit going to the church i attended for 15 years. my husband and sons still go every week, and i stay home, and i am told often how much my absence is felt. and yet i refuse to go back. [not yet. maybe never.] not until i know my heart and my God so intimately that i will not collapse in shame every time i walk through the doors, hear the voices.
i am blacking out most of the words of a bible. and responding to the words with my own poetry that is totally "outside the box" as far as what it is actually saying in the text.
i want to get dreads, and a tattoo (or two or three).
i am not a "traditional" stay-at-home-mom. i refuse to allow tasks like cleaning and cooking consistently to take precedence over being present with my own heart and the hearts of my family. i have refused to allow a get-your-shit-together, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of attitude to reign.
this has been an issue lately, as it is apparently not as okay with other people as it is with me (with us - my husband, though a clean house significantly decreases his anxiety level, is totally on board with the "hearts first" thing). i have had multiple situations recently that have ended up being underhanded jabs at my inability to maintain a put-together household. comments from family members; coming to our house and cleaning for me because they think/say "well, someone needs to do it."
my mother-in-law interrupted my usually peacefully quiet sunday morning this week, to "surprise us" with hiring someone to come clean our house (this, it turns out, was because a family member was coming to visit, and she couldn't handle the thought of it not looking like her kids had their stuff together).
i guess it is just not a traditionally valid option for a mother to have interests that take her time away from these tasks.
but. i have to create. it's just not an option not to for me anymore. it is my space for connecting, and i will keep choosing it, whether it is accepted or not. because the demands of tradition do not rule my life any longer - the spirit does.