The blogosphere. You will not elude me any longer. No, there never seems to be a right time. I still don't feel smart enough, witty enough or experienced enough. I never seem to have a well-thought out plan. Who knows how often I will even utilize this cyberspace journal! The thing is, time continues to pass and I don't thrive simply being a spectator. Since I left work in 2013 after my first child was born, this has been my plan. An outlet for me to share what I was learning as a new mom, the ups and downs I was experiencing having left a fun career, and you know, all the random thoughts that run around in my restless mind.
Fast-forward a few years and two more kids, I recently started setting aside some much-needed ME time. Mommy time. Mommy's night out. Only I'm not at happy hour. Or the mall. Or strolling Target kid-free (as tempting as that sounds). I am at Starbucks, PSL in hand, laptop open, wet hair still drying from my first shower in days, and I'm doing this darn it!
My plan (God laughs...) was to be a "working" stay-at-home mom. Boy did I underestimate, along with the rest of the world, the "work" that was naturally inherent to being a stay-at-home mom. I remember growing up I would say things like, "I'm going to do it all - successful career, loving wife and fun, fit stay-at-home mom." My mom would ask how I was going to manage all that with everything needed to maintain a household, and I'd confidently quip, "I'm going to have enough money to pay people to do all that." Blissful teenage ignorance.
Now a thirty-something and more than four years into domestic mom life, I have a much more level, albeit dizzied, head on my shoulders. I realize things rarely go as planned, but I thank God for that daily. I am mama to three spirited monsters who challenge me more than any job ever did. I am wife to the most handsome and hardest working man I've ever known. They are my world, and for the moment I am theirs. And that's it. That's the beauty I found which has ever so sweetly let me off the hook of regret over years of procrastination. I will never be this loved again. No, that's not meant to be dreary ... pensive maybe, but not cynical.
My kids are four, three and one so yes, I am their world. Well and daddy too, of course. And I love it. I love that right now, when I escaped for my mommy time, all I can think to write about is them. It is an incredibly magical time. A time I know will be gone in just a few short years when I'll have lots of competition for their attention, affection and love. Right now, the course of their whole day is driven by yours truly. There is such great joy, responsibility, challenge and honor in that. Do they drive me crazy? Yes. Sometimes I think I'd be better off playing in traffic. But the rewards, the rewards are so great I could not measure them by any worldly instrument. It keeps me going, literally. They push me to keep trying, keep believing, keep persevering, because their little lives depend on it. On me being at my best ... at least most of the time. I'm counting on God's grace to cover my shortcomings.
Me being here is related to that. I can't tell them I love writing, if I never write. I can't tell them to hold onto their dreams, follow through, insert cliche here, if I am not following that advice myself. And since we all know children learn far more from what they see us do than what they hear us say, here I am. Doing. It. All.
So I am done feeling guilty about all the things I am not doing or have put off. My life, like so many other mamas, is incredibly full. We just have to chose to see it that way. To every thing there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven (Ecc 3:1). I'd like to think my confident 14 year old self would be proud. It may not be the kind of "doing it all" she had in mind, but 35 year old me is completely content with that.