The Sunglasses on Your Head

Warning: You cannot in any way shape or form judge the author by the embarrassment that she is about to make of herself. If you feel you cannot oblige please read no further.

Motherhood is my job. So where are my eight hour days? When do I get to stop working? Well, Tuesday nights I get to play (meaning go to enrichment, run errands that need to be run without children, or on occasion do something mindless) while my hubby watches the children, Friday nights I get to go on a date with my sweetheart, and every other Saturday I mix it up by working for Weight Watchers in the morning. I usually have some down time in the evenings around 9:30 or 10:00. I want the downtime so badly that I often stay up until 11:30 just to prolong the relaxation. This is a problem.

Why am I so busy? I know the answer. I have felt a void in my life for years, a longing for something else. I can’t put my finger on what it is, so I feel the empty spaces with activity after activity thinking that this need for something more will go away. Here’s how my day goes: I wake up and exercise around 6:30, I get home at 7:30 and get the kids some breakfast and plug them into PBS Kids while I take a shower, at 8:30ish I get the kids ready for the day, by 9:30 I am ready to tidy up and look at my schedule for the day, usually there is some sort of errand running to do on the mornings when I am not cleaning or doing the laundry, lunch comes quickly, at 1:00 Tommy has preschool or downtime and Taylor used to take a nap but napping seems to be a thing of the past lately, I catch up on lunch dishes, clean, finish up a load of laundry, and or try to have some one-on-one with one of the kids during this time, around 3:00 my students come for tutoring on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, they leave around 4:30 or 5:00 and I start thinking about dinner and/or T-Ball, Monday is family night, Tuesday is free night, Wednesday is Emmett’s night which he uses for home projects, Thursday is home teaching or nothing (nothing meaning projects), Friday is date night, Saturday is a nice family day, and of course Sunday we rest (to some degree). Is this normal?

I only have two children. Why can’t I get it together? I run in circles all day cleaning messes and spills, doing errands, teaching piano, helping with piano practice, teaching the kids, playing games, sweeping sand, sweeping food, making food, cleaning dishes, making food, cleaning dishes, laundry, laundry, folding, etc… I feel like I am in maintenance mode constantly. I can’t get to the list of things not in my daily routine like mending, ironing; heck even washing the sheets is a stretch anymore.

I have a teaching certificate. In my training I was able to shadow many teachers to see how the day was run. I am serious when I say that I wish I could do this with other moms. I want to know how other people seem to hold it all together so well. Do they stay up until midnight cleaning and mending? What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? I need examples of other mothers in my situation to train me or at least make me feel like what I do every day is normal. Any takers?

So here I am, Tommy is five, Taylor is three, and I feel like I should have this figured out by now. I don’t know how obvious it is, but I have been perplexed by this predicament of motherhood since the day Tommy was born. I ask myself: Do I overcomplicate it? Am I a perfectionist? Am I involved in too many activities? Where is the balance between sacrifice for others vs. care for oneself? Since I’ve been thinking about these things for so long, I think I am finally coming up with some answers. In fact, I think I had an epiphany today.

Although I’m sure you are all used to me by now, I’m warning everyone that I am probably going to embarrass myself. I’m sure most of you have already figured all of this motherhood stuff out. My first thought was that motherhood is not ever in a stationary position. There is no normal. Change is the only constant. Just when you have a week planned perfectly and you know everything will go smoothly, someone gets the barfs. Maybe you finally figure out the perfect chore chart and reward system for your first child and you go to use it on your second to no avail. You might have finally found some time for your own growth and decided to take a lesson of some sort for a half-hour per week thinking that there was no way it would be a big deal, but after only two months found it impossible to fit it into the rapid-fire shotgun that hands you the events in your life. (Maybe that metaphor didn’t work, help me English majors.) Seasoned mothers must be masters of change. I am obviously still learning to cope.

I mentioned earlier that I am feeling some kind of void. So my second thought is centered on this void. I am a person with many flaws, and one of my flaws is that I love praise and even the spotlight (as if you didn’t know this). Motherhood is quite thankless. I think the void has partly been caused by my need for praise. I want someone to tell me I am getting an “A”. I want my boss to give me a raise. I want my own cheerleader. Okay maybe I’m getting carried away, but you can’t tell me you haven’t felt the same thing every once in a while. What is my problem? Why can’t I feel comfortable with my worth as a person without outside praise? This is where my second epiphany comes in. I can! I don’t need that. I think our society trains us into relying on outside praise. Not that it is bad, but it really isn’t necessary. I know when I’m doing my best, and I know when I need to improve. I am my worst critic, but I can also be my best friend.

Have you ever put your sunglasses on your head and then looked and looked for them later because you couldn’t find them anywhere? I admit that I have done that a time or two. Every time it happens I feel like an idiot. So my final epiphany makes me feel like an idiot. I have been looking to outside sources to fill my void. What I now realize is that my void will best be filled right here at home. The answer is as plain as the sunglasses on my head. I have forgotten to live in the moment. I’m tired of looking to something other than motherhood for fulfillment. Motherhood is fulfillment. I had given into the machine, the media, the world of women’s lib. Somewhere along the lines I have lost sight of loving the moment I am in. What if I fully embraced motherhood and stopped looking outside of it? What if I started to cook with more passion, read stories without worries in the back of my mind, or left the phone off the hook for a day. If I put my ego completely aside, I gotta tell you, the thought of it all makes my spirit soar. It makes me excited to think about this new idea of embracing this season of my life. This is where it is at, and I’m tired of being told otherwise.

I can’t wait to start tomorrow with this new attitude. I’m not saying I will perfectly conform instantly, but by being more aware I can already feel the void begin to disappear and in its place is a feeling of joy. I'm so glad I found my sunglasses before the sun had made me blind.