For Everything There Is A Season
Tuesday, January 05, 2010 Edit This 7 Comments »
Sometimes I really struggle to accept the pace of things.
I have always been a fast paced, low patience kind of person. For my children, and now for myself, I have tried to slow down, accept, and even embrace a slower pace.
Where I'm still working is in accepting the speed at which I can accomplish my own creative goals. I do so much writing, painting and business building in my head as I rock babies, wash dishes, pick up Legos, cook lunch...
Then when my mind comes in and says, "Hey, this is great stuff... if only you could write it instead of letting it float off into NeverNever land, seemingly never to realize it's own potential." Gah!
Then I get this tight, energy-shifty feeling in my gut that is saying, Damn, and silently wondering if I've hit the end of my creative life... if I made a choice between dreams when I chose to have a family.
Sometimes, as I gently, but so intently, infuse my children with my values, knowledge and powerful dreams, I wonder what their own will be and whether I will ever achieve anything but giving my all to my family.
Perhaps it is simply dark here in the beginning of this parenting tunnel and I need only move a little farther to see everything completely differently.
Perhaps I really am failing to make enough time for my own ventures.
Sometimes it is difficult to see (and value) the woman behind the mother... the individual behind the partner.
There are books that my soul is aching to write. Practices that my being seems to be begging for, and S P A C E that seems to be impossible to find.
But then I question how much of that old self, that self that believes that no matter where I am in life, no matter what I'm doing, I'm somehow being left behind... so very far from keeping up or -gasp- getting ahead. Then I remind myself how much if it is, and will always be, perspective. How even if I perceived myself as being ahead, I am not a likely candidate for stopping to take a breath, even then. I would, in this state of mind, likely power on even more furiously.
So, in that, I am grateful for this opportunity to learn. To learn to be Here. Now.
Not there.
Not in the future.
Not in the what-if, or the if-only.
Just here. With them, but also more with myself.
To just keep b r e a t h i n g and believing that there is time for everything that is meant to be.
Just to remember that I will never be here again and had best not take it for granted.
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7 comments:
It is interesting to read this and is a reminder that the grass isn't always greener. I envy you, in a way, as I would love to get pregnant and have a baby. However, I am single and therefore I can not afford to not work. I'm not sure I could raise a child that way I would want to while working a full-time job (some day cares won't do cloth diapers...and that's just one of many things).
So, from my point of view, I would gladly give up some of my abundant free time in order to experience the joy of having a child (ot to say that you want to give up your children in order to have more free time!).
I really know what you mean about "choosing dreams or family". There are so many things I never had a chance to do before becoming a mom and sometimes I do feel like I'm trapped in a sort of monotony that doesn't suit my spirit.
On the same token there are times when I think about the values that mothers like you and I are actively instilling in our children and that seems like a pretty important accomplishment/aspiration too;)
"To just keep b r e a t h i n g and believing that there is time for everything that is meant to be.
Just to remember that I will never be here again and had best not take it for granted."
Thank you for this! This was exactly where I was today, and you captured it perfectly...
I am a mother of three older children, 18, 20 and 23, and I am in a different phase of mothering. Understand that you need to live in the now and appreciate each moment that comes. Each moment has its gift to give us if we accept where we are understanding that the now is impermanent and fluidly changing.
My husband and I draw a lot of strength from Stoic writings and have a daily reading blog if you are interested... One of the main Stoic practices is Mindfulness... living in the now.
http://wordsoftheancientwise.blogspot.com/
I'm writing about SAHM appreciation this month on my blog. I was inspired by a book a friend gave me called "Time Out: Soul Talk for Stay-At-Home Moms" by Vera Nicholas-Gervais. She talks a lot about what you've written & are experiencing.
So just know, Mama, that there are others out there that feel the same way, me included. :)
You might enjoy this, which seems like it was written with the other half of the same breath (and on the same day), though by a different person on the other side of the world:
http://www.thisordinaryday.com/2010/01/05/it-takes-time/
I absolutely understand you in this post, and I have totally been where you are. I think it was Madeleine Albright who said that women really CAN have it all - just not all at the same time. I found that to be absolutely true. When your kids are as small as yours, they really do need most of what you have to give. But later on, there truly will be time. I could only work to provide for my kids when they were small. But when they were school-aged, I went to law school - as well as working and caring for them. A few years later, as they became truly independent, I started writing. And this summer I sold my first screenplay.
When there don't seem to be enough hours in the day to do what you have to do, it's hard to believe there are enough years in a life to accomplish everything that's important to you. But there are.
There is time to do it all. Just not all at once.
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