My life is my children. I mean, quite literally, that my life revolves around my children. Because I'm their mother and full-time caregiver. Wake up to them, care for them all day and see them to bed. It's a seven day a week routine. And sometimes, lots of times, I feel like I'm not doing enough for myself. That I'm not going out with friends enough, writing enough, creating enough, doing enough outside the kids.
I've been feeling low, like... where did all my friends go? Didn't I have a lot of friends, and do a lot of things before the girls were born? What did I do? My friends are still there, I just don't have a lot of time for them. My daily routine is impenetrable. In my free time, I crash. And last night, I realized something. This longing, yearning, desire for more - what's the point?
My life right now is full. My children are my life and that is how it is. It won't be this way forever. One day I'll be back at work focusing on my career. One day I'll have time to go out with friends, to create, to write, to plan, to do for myself. Today, I am a full-time, around-the-clock mom. And that's okay. Today that's enough. It's more than enough.
2 comments:
Loranda, these years will pass so quickly, you'll wish they were back. I didn't have twins, but I did have 3 children ages 5 & under and I thought I was forever going to be at home, caring for them. They were so much fun and yet I found myself feeling selfish from time to time. I would love to have some of those days back now, knowing what I know now of course..lol You're a wonderful mom with 2 beautiful little girls and a great husband.....stay in the moment, trust the process! Enjoy every moment!
Loranda, I love this post because I had a similar realization. I felt a lot of guilt over not wanting to focus on my career when Adele was a baby. I'd worked so long and sacrificed so much for my education, then suddenly, my perspectives changed and I wanted nothing to do with it. I forced myself to do the bare minimum amount of work to get through, but I didn't enjoy it, and I wasn't engaged (and the one thing that will make a PhD even more hellish than it already is is if you're not engaged, because there is no such thing as immediate reward in grad school, financially or otherwise). Then, very slowly, but very certainly (and incidentally, very much timed to when I started to get enough sleep again), my motivation started to creep back in, and I started to get that balance back. It happened as Adele got more and more independent and didn't need ME specifically anymore. Anyway, my point is that now, if/when I have a second kid, I think I'll be a lot less anxious about letting go of all of my "me" stuff for a bit, because I know that, for about a year and a half, my life will be entirely about being a mom. I think the first time around, part of the fear is that the old "me" stuff will never come back. But, it does. And really, all if it is "me" - the mom AND the rest of the stuff.
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