my lovely friend, terrica, is sharing her "finding balance" story today.
terrica is a "once-upon-a-time-and-will-be-again blogger" at terrica joy
terrica and i crossed paths via instagram and have exchanged long hand-written letters.
terrica's international travels seem to have given her a unique ability
to live life more slowly than the average american.
i value her outlook and her capacity to see beyond the complications of the immediate
to the peace and harmony of the future.
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Lay it down, came
the gentle whisper. My whole body
went stiff. Standing in the
bathroom brushing my teeth I scowled at myself in the mirror. Lay
it down? Are You serious? It’s the solitary thing I even do for
myself anymore. Lay it down!? You told me to do it in the first
place!
I knew an argument with the God of the universe was futile,
but I also knew He was big enough to let me vent for my own sanity. But just as I prepared to launch into
my barrage, a sudden unexpected sense of peace came over me. Besides, I was too exhausted to argue
anyway. I stared unmoving at
myself in the mirror. Fine.
Just… fine. I know You can
be trusted.
As I climbed into the shower mulling it all over, my sense
of peace and space grew. The grip
of obligation and expectation (even with something I so loved, my writing)
began falling away and giving room to deep and nourishing breaths. Maybe
this is a good thing, I thought. Maybe it’s a wonderful thing! Moments later as I shut off the water I
realized my initial frustration had literally been transformed into joy. The joy of letting go.
As mothers and wives we hold ourselves to no small
expectation. When you consider the
mental, physical, emotional and spiritual toll, simply being a wife is
enough. And mother, well, that’s a
role of epic, unspeakable profoundness.
Add in chicken-keeper, garden-tender, bill-payer, dish do-er,
laundry-folder, toddler-entertainer, grocery-getter, bottom-wiper,
3-meals-a-day-creator, bed-maker, errand-runner, annnnnnnd any other endless
variety of tasks both large and small, and it’s enough to drive anyone
downright mad. Let’s be real. But for me this creates double the
dilemma.
I am, without question, a free-spirited beauty seeking
dreamer. I spend long moments of
every day quite literally doing things like examining tiny flower petals. Gazing at the rustle of leaves against
the sky. Staring at chickens
pecking around. Writing poetry and
lyrics in my head. I instinctively
focus in deeply and quietly on one task, one moment, one thought at a
time. It’s its own kind of gift,
being so very present in my everyday, never missing a single beautiful
moment. But it also causes
problems. One major problem: I
don’t know how to multi-task.
Unlike most women I know, juggling a million small tasks at
once makes me want to crawl into the fetal position and cry. I like things linear, symmetrical, each
in their own space, tended to in an orderly and usually sequential order. It’s nice, at times. It’s also infuriating.
For ten years my husband and I managed just fine with all
our OCD quirks. Aside from work we
spent our days at leisure, cooking long meals, staying up until the wee hours
entertaining friends, traveling across the globe taking in several countries at
a time. But then after a decade of
adventure and marriage, a daughter.
A beautiful, heart stopping, crazy kind of love that brings everything
you know to a grinding halt. If
you’re a momma, you know precisely.
Problem is, you can’t quietly accommodate all your OCD
quirks with a little. They don’t
wait for you to pick up the house before you tend to their demands. They don’t always sleep when you want
or how you want or even where.
Quite frankly, it’s far less about anything
you want and more about everything
they want. They blow your nice, orderly world to smithereens in an
instant. But I knew this,
right? I was prepared! I could rock this! I was determined.
And so I tried for months to keep up with it all. The writing, the crafting, the small
jobs on the side. I hammered out
book proposals and submitted guest posts to various publications. I did give-aways and craft projects and
photography gigs to the point of literal tears. It was everything I wanted, right? The creative, stimulating, stay-at-home-mom-does-all,
perfect kind of world, right?
Of course it wasn’t.
I was killing myself. For
no good reason. And I wasn’t
enjoying it.
That was what I realized in the shower that evening. I didn’t want to do it all.
What I wanted was long moments with my tiny girl,
undistracted, uninterrupted. I
wanted to lay with her on a blanket in the sunshine among the tulips at the
Arboretum and not even think of blogging about it. I wanted long walks and handwritten letters to friends and
baking cookies in my kitchen with wooden spoons to lick and giggles to
share. I wanted freedom from the expectations I alone
had placed on myself. I wanted to
be the wife and mother and friend God called me to be without the trappings of
obligation.
So that very night, I laid it all down. And I’ve not looked back since.
Because I knew I needed some kind of accountability, I wrote
a declarative blog post titled ‘The Intention Project,’ clicked publish, and
exhaled the weight of paralyzing, joy-robbing stress. I set my heart to be present, to ‘be all here,’ to drink in
each given moment without any concern for the next. And let me tell you friends, it is bliss.
These days I allow myself the freedom to blog when I feel
like it, and I instead use Instagram like a teeny creative outlet on a daily
basis. It’s enough for now. I peacefully put the book proposal in a
folder out of sight, something to look forward to in another season. And I started saying ‘no.’ A lot. I’ve turned down offers of all kinds
from speaking engagements to travel gigs to enticing job offers with women I so
admire. But my days have never
been more full, filled to the brim with things I enjoy, things that
matter. Like watching my girl
chase bubbles, mastering a new recipe to feed my family, delivering eggs to
neighbors just because and writing life-giving letters to friends. They are life-giving, soul-nourishing
days in which I delight. And I am
a much, much happier wife and momma.
I couldn’t possibly be more grateful to drink in these sacred days. Being present always has a way of
causing gratitude to expand to the point of bliss.
My personal reality is simply that I cannot do it all, and
more importantly, I don’t want to.
It’s so okay to say I don’t
want to do it all. The simple
truth is God made me to savor one
thing at a time. One batch of
cookies, one flower in the garden, one shifting cloud in the sky. He delights in my being present with my
daughter in the simplest of moments and discoveries, because isn’t that
precisely what He’s modeled for us?
My prayer for you today is that you find that tender balance
among the mundane, that beautiful space of awareness and joy amidst the errands
and shrieks and laundry piles, and
delight there. Take in this
moment for the gift that it is and breathe a silent prayer of gratitude, and
you’ll find with amazement that all is worship, all is joy.
{the other posts in this series can be found here.}
