Balancing motherhood and myself.
I am now home, again, if "home" means the place where your name is on the property deed.
If "home" is the geographical real estate where I feel most at peace and happy, than, sadly, I am not at home, but merely moving through time and space, content to share my journey along side those I cherish.
However, I am now back in California where my husband has a busy job (amazingly, still in the newspaper business) and my children are each, excitedly, just about embark on their next school year.
It is September: A time of new #2 pencils, new outfits, and crisp, empty composition books. A time of rebirth and beginnings.
And, it's time for me to decide how I plan to balance what it is I want for myself, too, right now.
While on the road for the past few weeks I temporarily broke my addiction to my computer. Stepping away from losing myself to the seductive escape of needing to find just the right word made me realize something that I've always known deep down. Doing what I love and doing what is best for the people I love, is at odds.
I have let the dishes pile up while typing. I have not washed the Brownie uniform while finding the right way to put things.
I have not stuck to the chore chart, mostly because I never posted one to begin with. Instead, I did something utterly and complete selfish; I wrote. And for no other reason than I wanted to.
I didn't even write for money, which might have been forgivable. But, I took time away from folding clothes and sorting through endless mail and plastic things which once arrived in a "set," simply because at the time finishing a sentence was more important than putting a child's room into some sort of order. And sometimes, like right now, this really bothers me. I don't know how to do it all, be a good parent and be true to myself.
It's not that I aspire to be glorified homemaker but I can't help but feel that if I had put the same energy into "homemaking" that I have into the things that matter to me, alone, that it would have been better for my kids. And this realization is, for me, almost unforgivable. Why is that?
I know, I know. We all deserve to do what we love in order to be complete and that we need to model for our children how to go after our dreams...but trust me on this, if I had put the same energy last year into my home that I put into my writing, my kid's lives would have run more smoothly last year. And, two weeks on the road with them, away from my computer made this quite evident.
So, now I'm home again, furiously stockpiling all the back to school items for each child's classroom. Making sure they have nice clothes for the fall, wondering if their rooms are suitable for both homework and sleepovers. And in the back of my mind I'm thinking, how the hell will I get through the coming year? There's so little time to do what is imperative, how do I even fit in doing something impractical, like writing?
How do people do this, balance their own dreams and that of their children? I wonder if it is even possible, but some impossible task that nobody ever accomplishes.
Is this nagging feeling of failure what all mothers feel? If so, isn't this really tragic? How many mothers out there think they've got it all worked out?
I mean, other than Angelina Jolie and Michelle Obama, but how many moms really think, "Wow. I'm getting positive feedback from expressing my creativity and I know exactly what's going on with my kid's lives, too. I know how their day went, and they have done what they need to get through the next week. We have food and clothes and the bills are being paid and I feel happy that I have a creative outlet that feeds my soul." -- Do moms really ever feel like this?
If other mothers feel this way, then I salute their infinite wisdom, and can I please get some to smoke, too?
If "home" is the geographical real estate where I feel most at peace and happy, than, sadly, I am not at home, but merely moving through time and space, content to share my journey along side those I cherish.
However, I am now back in California where my husband has a busy job (amazingly, still in the newspaper business) and my children are each, excitedly, just about embark on their next school year.
It is September: A time of new #2 pencils, new outfits, and crisp, empty composition books. A time of rebirth and beginnings.
And, it's time for me to decide how I plan to balance what it is I want for myself, too, right now.
While on the road for the past few weeks I temporarily broke my addiction to my computer. Stepping away from losing myself to the seductive escape of needing to find just the right word made me realize something that I've always known deep down. Doing what I love and doing what is best for the people I love, is at odds.
I have let the dishes pile up while typing. I have not washed the Brownie uniform while finding the right way to put things.
I have not stuck to the chore chart, mostly because I never posted one to begin with. Instead, I did something utterly and complete selfish; I wrote. And for no other reason than I wanted to.
I didn't even write for money, which might have been forgivable. But, I took time away from folding clothes and sorting through endless mail and plastic things which once arrived in a "set," simply because at the time finishing a sentence was more important than putting a child's room into some sort of order. And sometimes, like right now, this really bothers me. I don't know how to do it all, be a good parent and be true to myself.
It's not that I aspire to be glorified homemaker but I can't help but feel that if I had put the same energy into "homemaking" that I have into the things that matter to me, alone, that it would have been better for my kids. And this realization is, for me, almost unforgivable. Why is that?
I know, I know. We all deserve to do what we love in order to be complete and that we need to model for our children how to go after our dreams...but trust me on this, if I had put the same energy last year into my home that I put into my writing, my kid's lives would have run more smoothly last year. And, two weeks on the road with them, away from my computer made this quite evident.
So, now I'm home again, furiously stockpiling all the back to school items for each child's classroom. Making sure they have nice clothes for the fall, wondering if their rooms are suitable for both homework and sleepovers. And in the back of my mind I'm thinking, how the hell will I get through the coming year? There's so little time to do what is imperative, how do I even fit in doing something impractical, like writing?
How do people do this, balance their own dreams and that of their children? I wonder if it is even possible, but some impossible task that nobody ever accomplishes.
Is this nagging feeling of failure what all mothers feel? If so, isn't this really tragic? How many mothers out there think they've got it all worked out?
I mean, other than Angelina Jolie and Michelle Obama, but how many moms really think, "Wow. I'm getting positive feedback from expressing my creativity and I know exactly what's going on with my kid's lives, too. I know how their day went, and they have done what they need to get through the next week. We have food and clothes and the bills are being paid and I feel happy that I have a creative outlet that feeds my soul." -- Do moms really ever feel like this?
If other mothers feel this way, then I salute their infinite wisdom, and can I please get some to smoke, too?
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