This month’s theme is…
Poor you. Sometimes I get stuck, and I have to write about things until I get unstuck, and that can take awhile.
It’s probably the adjustment to having another child. Or maybe it’s the fact that some of our wild stompings have settled down and we’re moving into a chaotic kind of routine, more of the shape of what our life will be here.
Or maybe it’s my poor neglected novel and ungerminated other ideas, gathering dust at the base of my skull, longing for water and sunlight.
Whatever it is, I’ve been thinking about a certain kind of lifestyle.
It’s my pretend world. It’s pretty simple. I’m not really one for clothes or parties or shoes. I don’t like standing on stage. I could go without watching any more movies in the theater without much regret. I like concerts, but can live without them.
But this is what a day in my pretend world would look like:
I would wake up with the sun of course, after a deep and refreshing sleep. I’d make myself tea or coffee, and make some for someone else, too. I’d wander out to some outdoor spot and pray. Then I’d start to write. When I got stumped for the next sentence, I’d pick up my knitting and think for awhile as I threw down some rows, then continue until I had my work done for the day. I’d paint in the afternoons. I’d cook or garden, edit my writing, and then read great and beautiful books with whatever time I had left.
Evening would be soft and purple. Maybe there would be sunsets to watch, maybe there would be firelight and singing.
It’s not that my children wouldn’t be in my pretend world. They’d be harmoniously working amongst themselves, singing and creating and taking such good care of their things.
They wouldn’t be peeing on the floor. Or destroying an entire pack of clothespins that I just bought. Or fighting.
Okay, so life is a little bit different in the real world than in the Pretend World. There is coffee, also tea, but they are often cold before I get to them. I read guiltily when I really should be doing other things. I knit a row and then set my project down. My book is very, very neglected.
But here it is! This is the life I have been given, God came over to me and placed it gently into my hands and now I’m supposed to do something with it. And now that I have it, it’s the one I want, really and truly. But how?
Kids are not seamless. They are not convenient, they are not quiet. They are not always harmonious. They are often not careful.
What they are is boisterous! Joyful, loving, genuine, hilarious, sweet, adorable, hungry, moody and engaging. I need to find a way to access the bits of me that can work with these traits. I need to find my fun side.
Of course, as always, God knows what we need. Because I am incredibly selfish. Not with stuff, usually, not with money (usually) but with my time. It’s mine it’s mine it’s MINE!
And no, it’s not. And because I am still a child, too, I will learn these lessons even as I teach them to my children, giving up my way for someone else’s, making my boundaries and then relaxing them. Being kind. Being more of an US than a ME. Asking the only important questions: What open road is before us today? Who will we meet? How will we love? (Not: What will my word count be?)
15 comments
You have no idea how I needed this, today of all days!
I’ve been hoarding my time and resenting what I give away. Like an overprotective mother I guard it and cry when its taken not freely given away. And children take far more than ask.
Someone told me once, “God has given you exactly the right amount of time to accomplish His purposes for the day.”
And time given to His children is a gift that will reap rewards for eternity.
Thank you for speaking truth into my heart today.
This so reminded me of an article I read once (of course I can’t remember where or what), but it was a mom of many children who talked about her continuing journey of giving her whole self over to being a mom. Body, emotions, time, etc. I loved that it wasn’t a guilt thing that everyone new mother should automatically have, but rather a journey of motherhood.
Bless you on your journey. It is so sweet that you allow us join you on this trip.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I so needed this. I hate when I resent my children for being…well, children. It’s a good reminder (that I needed desperately) to simply enjoy the beauty of who my children are RIGHT NOW and not get all bent out of shape when my plans get tossed out the window.
Beautiful post. Keep the theme coming.
Oh God will not mind if I bless the bloggers and the blogs, this I know. ‘Cause when creative types cannot get to their books they are “suppose” to be writing we manage to get to the blog. It is a blessing (sigh).
I have a new book/memoir idea, “My Life as Companion.” The things I observe in the world that I try to share with ‘kids” with physical and mental challenges.
And since I cannot seem to get the book together. I’ll blog it, of course.
Poor us? No. You express yourself so beautifully.
Something I struggle with too. In a way you have all this downtime as a parent, your brain is not overly engaged in intellectual pursuits as it once was pre-kids and much of the “work” of parenting is mindless and repetitive and so there is some space in the grey matter to get ideas, creative ideas, strong needs to be making things, all these things you want to do and write and read and places you want to go and people you want to connect with and projects you want to sink your teeth in and lose hours if not DAYS in. And (in your words) all these things “percolate” as you get the cereal and pour the milk and wipe the benches and change the clothes and push the swing and load the car and push the shopping trolley and they tempt and tease you but in reality you don’t have the time or the space as the days ARE full of children and THEIR needs and yes that IS hard.
Always putting their needs before yours and that’s the way it has to be.
I am forever reminding myself to just BE with the kids. No agenda. No rush to get SOMETHING DONE, COMPLETED TICKED OFF. To STOP and ENJOY them and this time. It is so precious (preaching to myself here)
Thankfully they are so cute and loving and very very good at weaving their way into our hearts and minds otherwise I think the tasks of mothering and the continual giving and giving and giving of self would be all the harder
This was a gorgeous post Rae.
I needed this too. My second is 5 months old, my oldest 3 1/2 and those early days were so hard but now there are so many days now that it feels like we are running like a greasy wheel and everyone (even momma) is feeling cared for and heard and calm…..and then so many others that we all (especially momma) so selfishly want more of everything….and for me that is time. And space. And then I think of what having all that time and space would mean and I go find my babies so they can smother me to their heart’s content. We are all still learning, that’s the beauty. And it’s what I need to remind myself every day when I feel a little “us’d” out. Thank you so much.
What you said really spoke to me, my days are like that, too, just trying to learn and love. Thanks!
This current time in your life, as you said, is a given–from God–which makes it a gift. And possibly it is this gift that God will use later to accomplish all that your heart desires. So often, the times that try our souls, later become the best times..the cherished times that we would go back to had we the chance.
While I loved being a mother and adore my children I so often was frustrated when they were small…but now that they are grown, I’d go back to those times in a heartbeat. Those were the best of times. And not because my current time is bad–it too is wonderful.
When we live each day fully to the glory of God, only then can we appreciate the beauty in it. With acceptance comes peace. Embracing the difficulties is a mark of submission, maturity and wisdom.
These are things that, hopefully, we learn as we grow. We, even we adults, have many lessons. Each day’s experience is the curriculum God has set before us.
i am de-lurking to say i really am glad for your post today. i don’t have anything interesting or witty to say but your bloggy writings are the first to inspire me in a long time. right now my partner is working in another state half the country away and we have been apart now (except a few days visit home a week ago for my sons birthday) for about a month and a half-we aren’t sure how much longer it will be. i have 3 children and am really struggling to keep balance & i do find it, the small bits (like reading your blog) really do help. you have an amazingly beautiful family!
Hey lovely.
You speak for a lot of mamas in this post.
I read this the other day and thought it very encouraging. Perhaps you will too.
on being tired
it is so much sometimes, isn’t it? so much love, so much giving, so little time in the day, the stolen moments for me/mama so brief.
i love the newest little one, the post on his story telling made my heart swell. what a love.
I am so with you in this. I keep pressing myself to stay present with my little ones, when my mind would often rather be digging in its own sandbox of reading and writing. I try not to wish away our hours and days and years together–but I hope when I’m on the other side and living without them again, I will reach through my loneliness and sorrow to appreciate wandering to a cafe whenever I want and sitting in the silence and solitude which are the scarce currencies of these days.
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