{"id":321,"date":"2015-08-25T00:34:26","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T00:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielahenry.wordpress.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2015-09-27T03:17:56","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T03:17:56","slug":"on-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/?p=321","title":{"rendered":"On balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” –\u00a0Henri Matisse<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What is balance? Balancing things out in life…. I have been thinking about it for a long time. Especially today and I realized that things can be balanced but there will never be a routine of some sort. One phone call from someone and everything in your life can change. I talked to my father today via Skype. My grandfather is in hospital since yesterday and I do not know if he is making it out alive. He is almost 86 years old. Wow, if I will ever be that old? If I will ever make it that far? Hearing this I realize again that I have to balance out my life. That I cannot go to crazy in either direction. Life can change or be over so soon. There is not need to stress too much.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know I have responsibilities in life and I know there are expectations from others that I live my life a certain way. Well, I just cannot balance this all out anymore. Life has changed. My life is a constant change and I love it the way it is. Others might think it is crazy and that there is no “routine” but it is okay with me. I am working on not feeling too bad about leaving my family behind \u00a0in Germany and not having enough personal time with them that I can spend anymore. This hurts me so much still. I lived with my parents for almost two years with my son and now things changed. My son and I are back in the U.S. and waiting for the next change. The Congo-change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life changes constantly and you never know if you even wake up the next morning. I just have to do what makes me happy. \u00a0If I am 100% into something it is hard for me not to give 100%. I like to do things how I envision them. When life throws you a curveball you have to change – your expectations need to change. Even your life has to change sometimes. I just do not like to run around with this sense of guilt all the time that I haven’t done something, haven’t called someone, haven’t done something according to someone’s expectations. My life is not perfect. Far from it. Life will get busier and busier and I will have to adapt and change – my perspective has to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter what anybody tells me, I know one things for sure. I know for sure that \u00a0I go to bed at night with this feeling that I was present as a good wife and mother. Even though there are points when my husband and I argue (mostly because of me I have to admit) but I know I am doing a good job and I am balanced. When I make mistakes I am aware that I can change the situation by improving so my family which is my biggest priority in life never gets pushed aside or down any ladders. I also know that I have to live up to MY expectations and nobody else’s. Everybody lives their own life. And to realize this just feels good. I realize that this is helping me fixing my feelings of being so un-balanced at times. I simply realize that I have a priority list for MY life and some things are higher up there and nobody needs to worry about those things but I!<\/span><\/p>\n

With me stressing sometimes about all kind of things I have to just balance things and chill. Being married to a Frenchi it should be all clear. I mean, all the French people I met so far are so laid back and stress-free it is amazing. When my husband is having his coffee and breakfast in the morning he can just chill, sit, and relax. I on the other hand try to find a cure for AIDS and split an atom. Trying to do everything at the same time, stressing – because this is embedded in my mind. Why? Because this is how I have been raised. Always worrying about everything and stressing. I try to please something, someone, balance things out to simply please. I have to realize that if I cannot finish something there is always tomorrow. Simple as that. Many times life is just difficult and things do not get done on time. But it is all okay. I always try to remember that I only have this ONE shot on life.<\/span><\/p>\n

To realize this and apply it on a daily basis – tough but manageable with time.<\/span><\/p>\n

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“What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” –\u00a0Henri Matisse What is balance? Balancing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.136,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.6785,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.85,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.2,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.9,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.27,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.02,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.47,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-minimalism-lifestyle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}