The blessed first week of camp! Last drop off, kisses and hugs dispensed and I'm off! Gleefully in my car, windows down and the wind blowing through my matted down hair. Matted down because I haven't showered. In two days. Or really eaten a meal sitting down when I think about it.. in.. actually, well, lets see, since the kids got out of school. It's been just shy of a month since I wrote last. I am embarking on the quiet stillness; needing to empty the writing bin in my head that taunts me as I make PB&J sandwiches fifty times a day. Two hours of alone time coming my way! Yay! What to do..what to do.. lets see, I can:
fold laundry/do laundry/go grocery shopping/pick up the toys-mess-laundry-wrappers on the floor/clean the bathroom/vacuum/remove gum from the bottom of tub/drop off the overdue books at the library/shower/run/yoga/write. I can fit it all in. Sure. No problem.
That's it though, it never gets fit in. I may do most of all of the above but inevitably a shower gets missed or my butt doesn't get in the chair to hit the keyboard. I'm all preachy to anyone who will listen about the importance of balance in one's life. Yeah, whatever. Even I want to tell myself to shut up.
There is no balance. There, I have said it.
No. Balance. There is no balance in Motherhood.
There are moments of calm, there are moments away, there are moments you may even think you have got this thing down but there is never truly balance. How can there be? Your life is not your own!
And as I say now, a reformed balance militant crazy woman, that is A-OK.
Just as you embrace that new wrinkle sprouting angrily from your lip line
(Mantra: I still can rock it, I still can rock it) embrace this:
Maybe there is a infinite lesson here...grace under pressure, keeping our heads above water, finding the humor, all the things we tell our children are important in life- things that can never be put to use if they are not desperately called upon to be tested out.
Time to take the training wheels off and fall. Get the band aids ready.
I was always so afraid if I didn't run the house like Julie McCoy from the Love Boat something awful would happen. Don't ask me what that awful was, I have no idea, just that it would be well, be a poopstorm I wouldn't easily walk away from. I remember a movie I watched with a Mother talking about all the balls in the air that she juggles and how she cannot under any circumstances crack under the pressure of effortlessly having them in flight.
Exhausting.
I'm getting the Post it notes out for the bathroom mirror. So what if you make jello for dinner? So what if the laundry piles so high you post avalanche warnings? So what if you rock in a corner for a few minutes feeling like you are going to implode? Feel it. Let the balls clamor to the ground. Lose your balance and fall.
Nobody said you couldn't get back up.
You know Alice from the Brady Bunch felt like this. Sure, she hid her rage in her apron next to her bourbon bottle, but I know she felt it. Hell, we felt it for her through the T.V. screen. Wouldn't it have been so much better if she just let it rip one time? Think of what she could have taught us! Better than any public service announcement. "Alice loses her shit- tune in at 5:00 to see it happen...."
So, this Summer I am forgiving myself of Julie, Alice, and anyone else I may have picked up along the way. Forgiving that my hair looks like dreadlocks, forgiving that no article was written this week. The laundry is still there but so are the smiles on my kid's faces. We drop into bed at night with a full day had. I wipe my perfection mask off and replace it with sunscreen. Pretty soon balance will be back. For a moment she will sit and have tea with me. It will be a nice visit, one I will look forward to, all the while knowing she won't be staying long. Hey, if she stays to help with the dishes, that's fine with me.
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