Five more weeks of school! I can’t believe I have come this far. Of course I have a LONG road ahead of me, but I am forging along and keeping one eye on the prize and the other eye on the three classes at a time I will take to attain this much desired teaching profession. I am still trying to get the balancing act down. I wonder if I will ever truly be able to do the balancing thing? I am such a procrastinator and a “last-minute, under-pressure" kind of gal.
My mind is in constant rotation all hours that I am awake. I constantly have dental appointments, classroom observation hours, work hours, sports practice days, grocery lists, home projects, inspirational quotes and thoughts, children’s ministries ideas, money worries. Constant activity. It’s truly exhausting.
I was thinking tonight how I wish my brain was configured like my word processor. I wish I had a System file in my brain and had folders in there for “Appointments, School, Work, House, Garden, Church, Creativity, Personal Maintenance, Vehicles.” Each of those folders would then have subfolders—Doctor, Dental, Orthodontist; Stats, Lit, Education; Work days and hours; Cleaning, decorating, projects; plants, hardscapes; kids’ projects, birthday parties, entertaining, inspiration; hair, nails, skincare, diet, exercise, meal planning. How completely awesome would it be to have an organized brain like that? I could just pull out one of those files and know exactly what it is that I am supposed to be responsible for tomorrow at 10 am and I won’t show up a month early or a week late for a dentist appointment. I won’t forget to pack lunches or wash basketball jerseys. I could pull out my organized to-do list and maybe the last of the kitchen painting wouldn’t be 7 months overdue.
When I actually have a weekend without responsibilities (okay, it’s my dream…go with it) I could click the file marked creativity and double click “make inspiration wall for Natalie’s room” and actually be focused enough to do it. But nooooo. What do I do? I just have it all jumbled up in my head and my “free time” is spent playing catch-up on wiping the footprints out of the bottom of the fridge and sitting down and reading the newspaper from a week ago that I didn’t have time to read or my favorite…walking around the house shaking my head because it’s all a disaster and I can’t even find a starting point.
It’s so overwhelming sometimes…this life thing—marriage and parenting and the ins and outs of managing a household. I often think back to when I only had one child…or even two. Back when they were small. It was so easy back then. But guess what? It WASN’T easy then! It was tough! I was sleep deprived, my boobs hurt from nursing, I had no idea when Riley would ever talk, and I smelled like a combination of baby poop and sour spit up. Looking back it seems like the easiest times of my life though. One day when my kids are in college or I’m helping my daughter decide on a wedding dress, I’m going to think…man, it was so easy and slow when she was 8.
I spend a lot of time reading quotes. I am a self-professed quote junkie and am very inspired by the great words of others. I keep a file of quotes (not in my brain) but on my computer :) I send my friends text messages almost daily with some feel-good quote that I have run across in my reading. I saw a quote not so long ago about the past and the future. Of course I forgot to save it, but it was something like “We remember the past greater than it actually was and we see the future bleaker than it really is.” That’s not the direct quote, but it’s something like that. And it's so completely true. When I was in high school, I remember people saying, "Enjoy these days. They are the best of your life." And in the respect that I didn't have any responsibilities to speak of...well, they were. But they were also tough times. I will tell my kids the same thing, but I know they will remember those days greater than they actually were. I think back to the days when my children were babies. I remember it being blissfully slow-paced and wonderful. I am pretty sure it was hard as heck though. I’m pretty sure I was sleep-deprived and lonely for adult interaction and a conversation that didn’t involve bodily functions or imaginary friends.
I am a woman who craves change and spontaneity and excitement, so one would think I would lovingly embrace the fast paced life I am living, yet more often than not, I would like to dig my heels in and bring time to a screeching halt. I would like to catch up with the things that seem to hold me back so I can get to the things that I love. I’d like to stop the motion of life and just smell the roses—sit down and enjoy that second cup of coffee instead of running out the door with it. The pace of life is so very fast. I often feel like we are all doing our children a disservice by over-scheduling their lives. Do I stop it though? No...I schedule right along with all of the rest of you, because I think they might be missing out on something. I wonder if we’re all going to realize in twenty years that the things they missed out on were things like building forts and skipping rocks and making mud pies and playing hopscotch—the being kids stuff.
Last weekend I joked that I would like to move out in the middle of nowhere and pick up Amish-like practices. I joked that I would trade in my sexy high-heeled boots and Bare Minerals cosmetics for starched blouses, skirts to my ankles and lace bonnets. We would pick up a simpler way of life, grow our own food, raise our own livestock and maybe find a more enriching life. I wonder how long I could actually last like that? I wonder if I would find a more enriching life or if I would be a miserable Amish woman who burnt everything she cooked and who corrupted the entire population by forming a secret group to make some bling for our bonnets?
As much as I’d like to slow down life and play catch up, the truth is, I’d probably be more miserable than the electronic-addicted children I am raising. So I guess I will keep muddling through life without my brain files and maybe I will start making some actual hard-copy lists to double click on the off-chance I find some free time along the way.
