Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff)

My dad is a wise guy--in both senses of the word. He is a master at teasing his four daughters and the king of bad jokes. I've never met anyone who can make an entire table of women laugh until they fall off their chairs or have to run from the room to catch their breath again. It's not the hilarity of the punch line that sends tears streaming down our faces; it's the "fake laugh." He has this chuckle that he uses primarily to make us laugh, and once he starts and we start, well, dinners at our house often ended in a lot of guffawing and a chorus of "Da-aaaaad!" or "Ray! Come on!" He's also a wise guy in the other sense of the word.  He has a host of pithy sayings he likes to pull from his back pocket whenever the time is right. "Remember who you are," is one of his favorites, always intoned as he was dropping us off at school in the morning or watching one of us head out the door with friends.  We'd roll our eyes and groan, but I like to think we stored those words down deep.  A couple of weeks ago he was leaving our house after A's birthday party; he turned around half way down our front steps and with a glib grin said, "Remember who you are!" I couldn't help but laugh. It was a joke, but maybe he knows a mama stretched thin still needs to hear this?

His other favorite saying is the title of a little book he keeps on a shelf in his bathroom: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (And it's all Small Stuff). I'm sure this one came in handy with me. I am a details girl. I have a mind for remembering useless minutiae, even though I can't seem to remember when my kids' doctors appointments are or which forms E needs to pass in at school or people's names or birthdays. And I'm terrible at time management. But if you need to know a phone number or how much Brussels sprouts cost at the grocery store three weeks ago, I'm your woman. The curse in remembering details is that I don't always have a very good filter for knowing what's important and what's not.  God bless them, my mom and dad spent many good years of their lives coaxing an over-anxious daughter through "major crises." I'm sure they remember my frustrated meltdowns over homework assignments and socks with the seams all wrong.  I'm sure they still remember the way I tore pages out of coloring books if my crayon slipped out of the lines or the way I stomped all over the house and threw papers off the kitchen table the first time I tried to do my taxes and couldn't manage the math. "Sara," my dad would say, "Don't sweat the small stuff."

To which I usually responded, "You don't understand!" Oh, but he did. It's not for nothing my dad earned the title "Uncle A" and "A-Ray." He's a detail guy, too. But I think his life experience has taught him a few things about what's important and what's not in this world. My Type A personality, however, still goes unchecked from time to time.

Last weekend, we went to visit our friends who live out in Buffalo. Like us they've been married just about a decade. Like us, they have two girls, one in Kindergarten and one in preschool. My friend L is a creative thinker with a passion for writing. We will be the first to admit to one another that that trait also makes us sensitive to our surroundings and just the smallest bit EMOTIONAL. Our husbands, God bless them, spend a great deal of time "working" with our creative tendencies as we dream up endless home improvement projects and ask them to help us carve out time and space for our writing. Sometimes in the world of marital bliss, in the midst of raising busy children, in the path of pursuing careers and dreams and ideas and readers, we husbands and wives get a little tetchy with one another.  While we spent a lot of time joking about the trials and stresses of maintaining a marriage and caring for kids, there was also a sense of relief knowing that we aren't alone in our struggles to love one another more fully, to forgive one another more freely.

This week Mark and I disagreed about the basement, about email, about computers, about how to care for the kids, about germs, about snoring, about footprints on the clean floor, and about sitting down to dinner. We got wrapped up in our pursuit of the best education possible for all three of our kids, in what dimensions and details we want for our finished basement room, and in our respective jobs (caring for our kids, and teaching other people's kids). When I look at this list now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry about it. Really? Did I really rib my husband about where a wall should go? Or about how long he should spend washing our son's hands? Yes, yes I did. And I think I can hear my dad's voice echoing in the background.  "Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff."

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of a good friend's dad. After a 20-month battle with cancer, he went home to be with the Lord. I didn't know my friend's dad, I never even met him, but our Bible study has been praying for him for almost two years. D's dad was the same age as my dad. He loved to cook and travel, tell jokes, and learn new things. He loved his family most of all. And while I sat there, eyes full, choking back the sounds that threaten to erupt in a silent room full of loss, I recognized that the most important things about our lives are both in the details and not in them.  The small things like cooking and traveling and learning and joking together were the things that spoke love in D's family. But the heartache, the trials, the suffering, those mattered far less in the end. It turns out the things that pain us the most in our day-to-day living--a job loss, financial burdens, personal betrayal, sickness--matter a lot less than the seemingly small ones. For the most important parts of who we are to one another lie wedged deep in the simplest routines and details of our lives. An inside joke, a shared meal, a hug, an apology. Thank God. Thank God it takes so little effort to declare that love lives here.  Thank God that in the midst of complicated human relationships and heartache, something as small as a touch can remind us of what really matters.

My girls and I have a secret code. When I rub my nose, it means I love you, I see you, I'm thinking of you.  A simple act, a little detail that speaks volumes when life gets crazy and loud and tense. "Don't sweat the small stuff," means more than not worrying about the details, because details really do matter. It means don't dwell too long on what isn't lasting, even if it hurts right now or for years to come, even if circumstances do overwhelm us.

Good advice from someone who can't sort out what's important and what's not. I guess it's time I start putting wisdom to work. I hope this means less bickering within our four walls, I hope it means more grace, more forgiveness, and yes, more moments where, like last night, we snuggle together on the sofa to watch a movie--all five of us, a bowl of popcorn on my lap, and three little hands digging deep for the most buttery kernels. I hope it means more time to be silly and less time spent instructing. More time enjoying the details and less time sweating the small stuff. At the end of the day, at the end of this life, I would like my three littles to look at one another, to look at our family, and see that no matter what trials we encountered, we faced them together, and no matter how nutty life felt, the smallest details spoke the largest truth: "Love lives here."

Once upon a time, there were four little girls who grew up in a house where laughter was loud and meals were long. Then one day those girls grew up and they said to each other, "No matter how hard it felt, and yes, sometimes it felt very hard, we always, always knew love." True story.

Thanks Mom and Dad.