Work, Motherhood, Adulting, and Doubt

This morning I am sitting at my desk in my bedroom, writing as I promised myself I would do daily.  I've cranked some tunes to drown out the exuberant sounds from the toddler as he orders my husband to hold toys in a certain way and the impending meltdown when his communication attempts fail to provide his desired result.  Although I planned this time for work work, (as opposed to house work or kid work or all the other works), I am distracted by the other things I should be doing.  Is my little guy getting enough activity and stimulation?  Wouldn't it be better for him if I was providing him with those things?  Are my big kids okay at school?  Should I be there volunteering more often?  The upstairs hasn't been vacuumed and there is all that laundry on the couch.  Am I wasting my time--or their time--in here writing for this blog that produces no income?  What about all the time I spend editing photos and learning new techniques?  So much of my work time is spent doing things with no monetary reward.  Are the risks, the sacrifices, too much?  All of this plagues me as I sit here at the computer every day, trying to produce as much as possible in the few hours I get every day.  

This afternoon I will go tend to the laundry, the kitchen, the vacuuming.  While I do that, I will be angsty about all the work I didn't get done here this morning.  Is vacuuming so important?  Can the kitchen wait?  What about the photos I have to deliver, the freelance writing gig, the networking and marketing and social media management and my non-profit work and that amazing project I have planned but haven't started yet and.....and....and.

I'm Buddhist, but I'm not very good at it.  My goal for the coming week is to be present.  When I work, I work.  When I parent, I parent.  I will try not to give in to perfectionist, parent, or professional guilt.  Wherever I am, I will be.

Then I might experience the unapologetic emotion of this present moment like this wild little Zen master.

Domestic Monotony

This morning as I was trying to figure out what part of real life I would show you, I decided to go with the boring, dull, repetitive things that keep our household going.  I was going to take a photo of my chopping an onion--a thing that I do almost every day.  It is a monotonous task that I usually think of as a means to get to another task, but today I was going to focus on it.  These boring moments make up a ton of my life.  What is more dull than chopping onions for a crock pot?   Is there beauty there?  

I set up my timer, fixed the focus and made sure the ISO, aperture and focal length were appropriate for the lighting conditions.  I moved to chop my onion when my leg stopped, caught on a whining, writhing obstacle.  The toddler was not in the mood to let me cook or shoot or do anything but hold him.  At first I thought I should hand him over to his Dad because I'm working dammit but then...  

He wanted to see what I had going.  I plopped his little butt on the counter and scooted him back under the cabinets.  He sat quietly, stock still, hands to himself, watching the whole process.  

If it weren't for this self-appointed quest to convince you to let me preserve your extraordinary ordinary moments, I would have missed this.  I may have checked out mentally in order to cope with a screaming toddler at my feet, just to get this task done and on to the next.  Without this project, I may never have remembered his rapt attention, his admiration, his fat little feet on my counter.   

I don't want to show you this photo.

It's technically inaccurate, I didn't spend enough time taking it, I wanted to do an entirely different composition, and, well, it makes me feel naked.  I'm showing you more than I want you, or anyone else really, to see.

I'm highlighting my patch of gray hair, the bags under my eyes and those tiny hairs on my chin.  I'm exhibiting my stress,  my sleeplessness.  I'm showing this moment's intense struggle.  This is me, today.  This is not hindsight; it is not an "it gets better" photo. There is no before or after; this is now.

Tomorrow may be better, and then in a week or so I will probably be back to an easier place.  Right now, though, I'm wrestling the gators.  To embrace authenticity is to lay this moment bare.  To accept it as a part of living a full, incredible life.  To understand that even now, even in this dark place, there is beauty.  

There's an airplane in my living room.

I'm in the weeds of parenthood right now.  I'm in that part where there is so incredibly much to do that I work from the wee hours in the morning until I crumble into my bed at night, and it feels like nothing was accomplished.  At the beginning of the year, I determined that this will be Self-Care 2016, but quite frankly the idea of finding ways to relax is stressing me out.  It's ridiculous, really, but there it is.  Between working, feeding all these mouths, maintaining the house and carting everyone around for extracurriculars, doctors' appointments, school functions and the rest, I barely have time to pause and absorb what is happening.

When I slow down, I see that there's an airplane in my living room, along with a pile of laundry on the couch, a plastic baby under the recliner, a pile of books under the table from the toddler's manic reading binges, and puffs of dog hair that never seem to go away no matter how much we sweep them up.  There's an adolescent iguana surveying the scene with judgmental interest from her perch in her ginormous cage.  Even though the kitchen was cleaned last night, there's already a pile of dishes on the counter waiting for a dishwasher vacancy.  The stack of recycling is falling over in the corner.  The chaos, the intense non-stop on that is my home, is overwhelming.  

Inviting people to come into my home always carries with a disclaimer:  "My house is a wreck."  It's not that I don't try.  Or that I've given up.  Or that it's not important to me.  It's just where we are right now.  No matter how hard I work, it's always a wreck.  Sometimes, if I can kick everyone out for a day, I can have the house sparkling for about five minutes before they blow through and leave an infuriating path of destruction behind them.  Even so, I am acutely aware that time is running away through my fingers as I try to grasp a few moments to slow down for just a minute or two.  

My oldest kid is fifteen.  She was four when I met her. These eleven years are a blink.  One minute I was teaching her how to read a clock and now she is learning to drive.  She cleans up after herself, runs her own laundry, and is always ready to lend a hand.  I can't remember the last time I folded one of her shirts.  She no longer plays with the airplane in the living room.  

These moments...these annoying, chaotic, frustrating, overwhelming, seemingly endless repetitive moments are a flash in the pan.  I don't remember what it was like when the teenagers played with little kid things.  I don't remember their hands clutching little people, locked in an imaginary world.  I didn't take enough pictures.

Lately I still haven't been taking enough photos, even though I know better.  The one-year-old will be driving next week or so, and yet I am too ashamed of the disorder in my living room to take pictures of his chubby little hands on those little plastic people he loves so dearly right now.  Yesterday I was pregnant, today he is a tornado, tomorrow he will be off to college.  

We are in the weeds of parenthood, and it is beautiful.  The airplane in my living room is the toddler's.  So is the baby under the recliner--the baby he cuddles, kisses, tucks under blankies, and swings around in a circle by the legs.  The laundry, the dishes, the pet hair and all the rest are trappings of a vivacious, brilliant life.  It's okay to document all of this as it is now, because when it is over I won't remember.  I'm too busy doing all the things to commit this part to memory.  

 All I will have are photos.  

All you will have are photos.  If I want to preserve these moments for you, I have to be willing to open the doors to my home and let you see mine.  We have to be authentic for each other.  It is important for both of us.

As I crack myself open to write, I will show you pieces of my real life as well.  I'll show you the airplane (and the horse, the parrot, the barn, the wrecked car, and even the mystery crumbs) in the living room.

Avoidance.

I am supposed to write.  I don't know how to explain it other than this is my calling, it is what I am supposed to do in my life.  I am supposed to give words to ideas and then share them with a wide audience.  I am compelled to do it in a way that is so terrifying that I avoid it in increasingly elaborate, creative ways.  I am supposed to crack myself open for public consumption, to be authentic, raw, and straightforward about the human experience.  

Things I have done to avoid writing in the past:  

Played stupid video games.  Volunteered every moment of my free time to various organizations.  Made a baby.  Coached soccer, even though I am not a sportser.  Started a business.  Took up knitting.  Organized my bathroom cabinets.  Alphabetized the books and then decided on the Dewey Decimal system and then decided on something else entirely.  Saved a neurotic dog.  Made feeble attempts to learn to play the ukulele.  Colored mandalas.  Drunk copious amounts of wine.

In fact, during the time it has taken to write this post, I have: Stared at the bottom of my coffee cup.  Decided I needed a workout buddy at my gym and posted a request for one from my neighborhood Facebook group.  Shared information on social media about two different chapters of a non-profit.  Stalked a stranger's Facebook page.  Checked my email accounts multiple times.  Stared into space.  Decided to start editing photos in the middle of a sentence.

The avoidance has to stop.  I am hereby committing to writing every day.  I will set a timer for at least 15 minutes and write.  Even if it is crap, I will write.  Even if someone is wrong on the internet, I will write.  Even if photos need to be edited, I will write.  Even if no one ever pays me for my words, I will write.

I must stop avoiding my calling.  I will embrace it.  

I will write.