Catch Up

Since I started work last August my mind has not always been my own. I have always had an immediate deadline, crisis, student, teacher, or parent pressing in on me. I have had a shifting job description and thus my responsibilities and expectations of myself have been a moving target.

I have also been trying to figure out how to be The Mom I Want To Be in a new set of circumstances. It has not been easy. How can I best use my ever dwindling time with my children? This two-full-time-working parent thing is new to us. I know most parents have been doing it for years, but how? How can I parent from 6:00-8:00AM and 5:00-8:30PM (the hardest times of the day for all of us) and two weekend days a month? How do you parent a late-rising, wiry, wiggly, vocal sprite and an early-rising, sedate, brooding thinker under the same roof? Why can’t they be just a little more alike?

It was an accomplishment to make it through each day. I did some good work and I had some hard days. To make it, I have had a kind of headlight vision—I have been able to see only what is just up ahead. I concentrated on work while I was at work (the best I could) and while I was at home I concentrated on feeding my family, keeping them clean enough, and being kind to them (the best I could). I have been ignoring the laundry, aesthetic progress in my house, personal phone calls and emails, my blog, and piles and piles of stuff that cover nearly every counter and bookshelf in my house. I have triaged my emotions as well—dealing with the ones that bubble over and putting the others on the back burner. I have worried far too much about things that could not, just would not, get done. I have worried far too much about what other people are thinking about me. I have spent many evenings in front of the T.V. just to quiet my brain. I have stopped trying to get “enough” sleep and just tried to sleep when I could for as long as I could.

We have managed to make some friends and see old friends and be a part of an extended family.

Philip and I have coped during the tough months and reconnected in easier months. We have been too tired to talk many nights, but made sure to carve out time together when we could. There has been lots of grace.

And now, the summer is here. And I have a little space and a little time to get it together. Ahh, the elusive “together” that most moms I know strive for—even appear to be. Maybe, one day, we will catch up and actually be together instead of just playing at it. I am going to spend my summer trying.