This post has nothing to do with my boots except that I took them off to write it

More blogging about blogging.

I rambled a little on Sunday about how blogging is like exercising. Or couponing. If you don’t do it enough your head gets overfilled with ideas, just like my dining table with coupons.  And starting up again — phew — that’s the equivalent of my hitting the treadmill for the first time in months. NOT a pretty site.

But sometimes there isn’t a trick to it — there’s  no magic calendar. No magic reminder alarm going off on my phone. No rubberband around my wrist reminding me that there was something I forgot to do (snapping it to sting yourself is also a nice Pavlov’s dog exercise by the way).

Blogging, exercising, couponing (although that’s a stretch) — are all the same. The only way to do it, is just to do it.  There’s no right way, there’s no wrong way, there’s just doing it.  I used to think I would start writing more when I got my blog page looking exactly the way that I want it.  Or I would start couponing more if I had the right binder. Or I would start working out more if I had the right pair of tennis shoes and matching ponytail holder (LOL — that’s a lie —  hahahahhaha…..)

I had a not so great doctor appointment  yesterday. Without getting into too much detail, I’m reminded of my health issues.  I sometimes forget. The pill popping and the pain become such a normal part of my every day life that I have learned to let it just happen in the background.  But blood tests bring it back to my attention and I’m having to think about my to-do list.  I have my every day tasks.  I have my children tasks. These overlap in many places. These things are important to me.  Most important to me.  But then there are my just for me tasks — and these are the ones that take the most effort.  And they shouldn’t. These are the things that make me feel most like me.  Sure I love the things I do with my children, and I love volunteering at the elementary school, and I adore watching my little one in swimming class. But every once in awhile we deserve to do things that exercise our minds and our hearts and our bodies. Getting those things in sync is my biggest challenge.  (I’m preaching to the choir here — I know it mamas.)

In the interest of self-preservation today, put yourself first and cross off a to-do on your me list. Even a small one.

Blog post. Done. : )

Do What I Do

Five of these equal ONE cup of green tea & will help you get through your day.

Yesterday I jumped out of the shower and then dried myself off with a face towel.  My. Entire. Body. Then I found a (wrapped) granola bar on the floor and ate it for breakfast.  Then I caught up on emails, did work for three hours, and cleaned the kitchen.  Then I made lunch, edited an 8th grade English paper, put away three baskets of laundry, washed two more baskets, picked up two of my teenagers friends whose mother had gone out of town for an emergency, fed everyone dinner, washed dishes, gave the little one a bath, picked my husband up from work, and folded more laundry, and ended my day writing more emails.  Every day is like this — with just a few variations on the chores, the food, the pickups.  But one thing is the same:  I am always busy.

This past weekend some ass had the nerve to say to me:  ”It’s not like you have to get up and go to work in the morning.”  He added: “I’d love to stay at home with my kids instead of working all day.”

I was annoyed, but didn’t have the energy to give him the response I wanted to.  He actually didn’t deserve the energy it would have taken for me to rip his head off, so I left it alone.  But here I am — three days later — still annoyed with his comments.

What I wanted to say was this:  Do what I do — I dare you to give it a whirl.  I don’t just do motherhood — I am good at it.  My children aren’t just getting by, they excel.  I don’t just feed them — I make sure they are eating balanced and nutritious meals.  I help with homework, I know their friends, I volunteer at their schools, I spend time getting to know them as people.  I don’t just work — I created my own business.  I am passionate about it, I put my heart and soul into it.  I don’t just collect a paycheck, I make myself valuable to my clients and work on their projects as if their business is my own.  I’m not just a wife — I’m a friend, a partner, a schedule maker, a cheerleader, a taxi driver, a lover, a sister, a daughter.  I put my needs last — and my family’s first — and will until my children are grown and have thriving families of their own.  And even then — I will probably put their children’s needs before my own.

Instead I nodded my head, smiled and said, “Please let me know when you would like to give that a try — I’d love to see you do what I do.”

What is your response when/if people say these types of comments to you about being a stay at home mom?

Rhythm

The second night we spent in Washington State, I was still awake at 2am.  I came upstairs and took a quick look around our very empty house.  Checked on the children. Sleeping in their empty rooms. Stood in the kitchen. Staring at the mostly empty pantry. 

There was this whrrrrrrrrr noise, every few minutes.  Over and over again. Whrrrrrrrrrr. It was the empty fridge. It created a rhythm in the otherwise empty space.  It was creepy and comforting at the same time. But mostly creepy. 

I eat when I can’t sleep. It’s a bad habit of mine.  But here in this new space, we had not yet had a chance to stock up on the little things that you hide and hunt for when insomnia disrupts your rhythm.  I remembered that a friend had baked a small loaf of banana bread and gave it to me when we first arrived.  I took the time to slice and eat a piece carefully. I remember feeling so thankful to have a homemade snack, humbled by how such a small thing could make me feel so comforted. 

I thought I wanted to cry — but here in this emptiness, on the other side of the country from my home and the place that I grew up, the place that my children were born, the place where my parents still lived, I could not find, inside my heart —  the button you push, when you need a good cry. 

I had spent so much time being big, that it almost hurt to try and be small. 

There is a rhythm in living up to the standards of the people around you.  It starts when we do the things we know we are supposed to do:  go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, buy a house, get a better job, have more kids, make more money, buy a bigger house, buy a nice car, and then, and then, etc. etc.   Somewhere along the way, my rhythm stopped being mine.  It wasn’t society.  It wasn’t my kids.  It wasn’t my husband.  It was me. 

I’m not referring to some sort of quest for self-actualization — noble as that might be — it’s not my intention in life to reach the top of the hierarchy.  I don’t have any misguided notions, regrets about being a wife or a mother, wishes of what might have been.   I was empty.  I lacked a real rhythm.  I mean just a regular living life, getting up and breathing, doing something besides surviving rhythm.  The thing that beats in you and makes you want things, the space that is filled when the wonderful things in life give you something to hum about, the button you push when you need to have a good cry. 

Somewhere along the way, my rhythm became a dull and throbbing sensation that rushed to meet deadlines and struggled to bring home a check.  I went to a job every day that left my spaces empty, until I lost it and longed for it, retracing my steps, convinced that I could have done something different.  I followed a schedule set out by people who I shared my children with, mutating my love for them into something I had to prove every day, watching and being watched by the standards that estranged parents hold for one another. I made phone call upon phone call, dancing with the mortgage company to a nonsensical music that they created for our lives.  I smiled when I met strangers.  I had conversations with people who were friends.  My mouth and my movements choreographed to a pretentious sing-song that constantly assured the people who shared my space that I felt fine and everything was okay.  All the while standing in an increasingly empty space, wishing I could stop being so big for just a moment.  The rhythm of being someone you are not, the clanging of music that is not your composition, the whrrrrrrrring of a world that I stopped being a part of made me forget how to feel.  

Life away from the every day noise has been a luxury I never thought I would have.  My days are chaotic, sometimes run by my children’s schedule.  Always dictated by last-minute things I have forgotten to do.  Occasionally worrying about what to cook for dinner, at times bothered by illness I can’t control.  Sometimes my nights are sleepless, like tonight.  But not for any reason except that I have thoughts that I need to write down, brownies I need to bake, toys I need to pick up, last week’s episode of a show that I meant to watch. 

I have found a rhythm here in Washington, in the few people that I have become friends with, my small container garden, my yoga in the mornings, the farmer’s market on the weekends.  Despite the obvious chaos of being a mother of five children, the unavoidable stress of life in a recession, the reminders of fragile health when I am breathless at the top of the stairs — for once in a very long time, my cadence is purely my own. 

I don’t hear the fridge anymore when I’m up late and I can’t sleep.  It’s been replaced by a ticking clock, the air conditioner, sometimes I hear the dishwasher.  I find snacks waiting for me, even at the latest hour.  Sometimes I leave the TV on, sometimes it’s the washing machine.  Even when I am exhausted the next day from being up all night, I can feel my heart being filled with the sing-song that is a livable life.

Peace.