I Always Feel Like I Am Compromising
If I focus on writing, working, I feel the lack (dreadfully) in what I am as a mother.
If I focus on being Mommy, making a home, I feel something in my soul begin to scream. Too long at that, it grows silent and still. Too still. In-the-throes-of-death silent (though, now that I think of it, “throes” don’t seem that silent).
Joe comes home and asks, “How was your day?” and I laugh a crazy little laugh of desperation and answer: “Oh, great, you know, changing diapers, doing laundry, the usual. Yours?”
And I have nothing else to say.
Average or Exceptional
I listened to a podcast yesterday and in it this is what caught me, this small instruction: get a sticky note and a pencil. On your note, write either “I am average” or “I am exceptional.” Put your note up, on your computer or wherever you work or sit or think. Now, if you wrote “I am average,” then you’re good. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Live your average life in peace. But if you wrote “I am exceptional,” then how dare you waste your life doing average work and average things when you know you are meant for more?
Guilty, Guilty, A Thousand Times Guilty!
There’s a tragedy in thinking we are all called into the same kind of life. We apply moral standards to matters of personality, preferences… then we judge accordingly.
The gavel comes down. Guilty. You have not met the current cultural standard for ________________. Fill in the blank. It could be anything. It applies to everything. The real guilt, though, is in denying the true self, the true calling.
What’s tricky is where the lines blur.
Wife, Mom, Homemaker: roles I have wanted, roles I now fill, which are fulfilling, genuine me.
Martha Stewart, endless crafty projects with the kids, decorating cookies: not me.
I can try. I can feel guilty. But if I start being that person and doing those things because I feel guilty, because I feel some kind of societal pressure, there’s no real gain. The motive matters.
It’s Just Your Ovaries Talking
The burden lies upon us to ask these real questions and find the real answers: Am I average or am I exceptional? What am I meant to be? What am I meant to do?
And before any one of you ladies answers, I strike an option from the list of possibilities: do not, repeat, do NOT answer with “I’m meant to be a Mommy.” Sure you are. You’ve got ovaries, don’t you? As the female member of the species, you can bet you’re meant to be a Mommy. It’s a drive, an instinct, a gift, a calling. Good.
It’s also a cop-out.
For some short period of your life, motherhood will require your attention on a pretty constant basis.
But for the rest of your life, it won’t, or at least it shouldn’t. You might let it, and if you do, it’s probably because you’re afraid of who you are without it. You’re afraid you’ve got nothing more.
“Fear has always seemed to me to be the worst stumbling block which anyone has to face. It is the great crippler” ( Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 25, You Learn by Living).
The Secret to Being Better at EVERYTHING! (insert gleam on tooth, twinkle in eye)
Listen up, sister. You’ve got more. And here’s a little secret I’ve learned from in the trenches: the more I engage that part of me that isn’t about being a Mommy, the better I am at the part that is a Mom. And the more I enjoy it.
Motherhood was never meant to diminish us into little cooking-cleaning automatons. Let motherhood be the catalyst for your creativity, and start pouring it out in every direction. Find yourself, and you’ll find that you’re a better Mom.
Image courtesy of x-ray delta one.