So I have an embarrassing confession to make. “Livin’ La Vida Loca” was a guilty pleasure song for me. When I first heard it, I related to the red-lipped beauty’s commitment to dancing in the rain, and fancied myself a strong woman who lived an exciting crazy life. (Of course, I have never embraced black cats and voodoo dolls, etc.) Lost? You may not want to hang in there for the rest of this blog while I reminisce about this super cheesy pop ballad of my youth.

Still with me? Okay then.

Some days, my now regularly un-red lips and I seem to have left my youthful passion far behind. Some days the craziest thing I do is spread a carefully measured teaspoon of grape jelly with high fructose corn syrup on my wheat toast—carbohydrates be danged! Some days I ask myself, where has the passion gone? When is the last time I went dancing in the rain?

Today, as my children’s ancient electronic keyboard blared the midi version of this song, I began to mourn the crazy, passionate woman I thought that I was.  And then I realized that I actually am livin’ la vida loca, baby!

Is my life crazy? Watch me wrestle my squirmy toddler into semi-silence so that our family can go to Mass together. Dancing is for wusses . . . You want to see real passion? Observe how I try to help my teenagers navigate the wild waters of social media and phone use in a world where “no one else” has boundaries. Red lips? These mama’s lips are red from biting back my first frustrated response to my kids, so that I can react in love to the announcement that yet another glass full of water has shattered on my kitchen floor. Skipping over wet broken glass on tile is trickier than dancing in the rain any day.

With strength that can come only from closeness to Jesus and the fire of the Holy Spirit, trying to live life as a holy, Catholic mom is just about as crazy as it gets. We are livin’ la vida loca, ladies!