The Hardest Part of Motherhood
Life Interrupted
I'm of the opinion that everyone needs a place where they can escape to be alone, a sanctuary of sorts, even in their own home. Mine is our bedroom: swathed in white, grey and cream, I can sit atop our down comforter, multiple pillows at my back and really get lost in flow. As I write there today, a semicircle of items begins to accumulate around me: a Bella Grace magazine, where I often find word inspiration, one dot grid notebook, another college rule, a pen and a pencil, my stapled custom weekly planner. I am in the zone. At least I was, until I was interrupted:
My two-year old wakes from his nap and toddles into the bedroom hugging Scott Gustafson's "Mother Goose" to his chest.
We read for a while.
My four-year old screams from the trampoline, and I jump off the bed to see what emergency has warranted such a response.
We snuggle for a while.
My husband returns home from work and wants to know my thoughts on dinner.
We chat for a while.
My little girl gifts me a love flower, a sweet-smelling pink blossom she has picked just for me.
I ooh and aah appropriately.
My life is full of interruptions. Often I am even interrupted from the interruptions. I can accumulate a backlog of interruptions which must be sorted through and tended in the order of their giving, like a nightmare checklist that is always being added to while I frantically try to pencil in check marks before new items appear.
Life Uninterrupted
Checklists. Oh how I love a good checklist. Or a new planner. I am a huge planner. I always have been. My husband has accused me of enjoying the planning of life more than the actual living of it, and there is probably some truth to that statement. A plan has the potential to be perfect, while life itself is messy. I much prefer perfect. Seeing the upcoming days and weeks scheduled out on paper brings me a sense of accomplishment before I've actually accomplished anything. It also brings me peace of mind, the ability to release a mental load, the knowledge that the life I want can be lived - all I have to do is follow the plan.
Used to be, if I wrote it down in my current planner of choice, I could almost guarantee it would happen. In college, as the sun sunk low out the window of my shared bedroom, I could be found cross-legged on my twin bed, spiral notebook opened to a clean white sheet, and a pen in hand, scheduling the following day in half-hour increments: an early morning run with my roommate, human development lectures, lunch from the Jamba Juice on campus, hours of uninterrupted study time in the basement of the library, where not even cell phone reception could reach me, and most likely, pancakes for dinner. Every item in my day had a place within the schedule, minimal surprises, maximum control - just the way I like it.
I lived such a charmed, type A life at university where no one influenced my goals or my ability to achieve those goals but me. No other humans with needs or demands interrupted my thoughts, my showers, my prayers, my meals, my writing, my sleep - my life. And then I graduated, got married, had a baby, a baby, a baby. Suddenly, not only could I no longer eat breakfast for every meal of the day and hide out in the back of my Toyota hatchback for hours of silence, but I also had to share nearly every minute of my life with little humans, needy humans, unpredictable humans, humans who refused to follow the plan and insisted on interrupting my own desperate attempts to do so as well. My life became our life, control became a thing of the past and interruptions became a constant struggle.
Real Life
The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of ones "own," or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - The life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination.
And there it is: what I call interruptions to life actually are life, not the life that I've penned out on paper, but the life that God has penned for me. And while my plan prioritizes living a slow and simple day, where I can accomplish each item on my list and follow each train of thought all the way to the station, no additional check boxes creeping in, no train robbers halting the forward motion, God has a different plan. Growth. My growth. Painful growth that happens when I am pushed to my limits and given the choice to react in frustration or in patience and love. To stay who I am or accept the challenge to become more like Christ.
In this moment, I take a deep breath, hold my pointer finger up in the air to my daughter who is calling for me to look at her Magnatile creation, and remind myself that this is my real life, and that it is just what I need. Today, the reminder works, but I am still very much a work in progress. I don't foresee Overcoming this hardest motherhood challenge completely anytime soon.
Planning Real Life
Nowadays, I still plan and organize my days on paper, although I can't currently commit to a specific planner and my half-hourly routine has become much more of a chunky daily rhythm. I try to double the amount of time I believe any given activity will take, to account for poopy diapers as we're walking out the door and all other manner of poop life throws our way. I'm still figuring out the balance between making my own plan and accepting Gods plan, the balance between safeguarding my time and accepting the interruptions that family life brings, the balance between teaching my children it is rude to interrupt and accepting that they are not the true interruption.
It's getting late and Elliot climbs into my bed, frustrated by the books and notes piled in a spot he feels should belong to him. He scrunches up his little face and calls out in exasperation, "I need some room!"
And just as I do all day long, I shift the expectations of my life to make room for our life, to make room for the life God has planned for me. And I have faith that His plan is more magnificent than any of my own. His plan is truly perfect.
