One thing I continue to struggle with most in my life is flexibility, changing route, going with the flow… ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES. Despite my best intentions I am a perfectionist and planner at heart. At times this can bring me to my knees, not to mention, ruin the day. I wanted to share my most recent attempt at trying to move past ruined plans without feeling completely defeated.
What is a Full Time Job?
Being a full-time working mom can at time become a constant inner battle. I know I am setting a good example for my children by following my dreams and making my own success. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel guilt every day for not constantly volunteering at my child’s school, or being able to go on every field trip, or having to run around like crazy in the morning so that I can get them where they need to be without being late for work.
It may seem strange, but I often have to remind myself that I am not a stay-at-home mom. I want to be involved and help out with all the things involving my children, and it all goes fairly well until they plan a meeting at 10 am on a Tuesday morning. It always happens, and I am suddenly snatched back to reality. even worse, is when I am not even asked to help because they “assume” I don’t have time. Like I said, it is a constant inner battle.
Last Week…
I felt that I needed to explain all of the above because of what happened this past week. Tuesday evening, I found out that my daughter was going to sing a solo during her school mass Thursday morning. This led me to spend the entire morning on Wednesday wondering if I should take off to listen and support her. Part of me was screaming that I miss enough activities involving my children already, but the other part was reminding me how truly hard is to take off as a teacher. This cannot be a game time decision.
Once I make the decision I have to immediately put in for a sub (and hope it gets filled), and then I will spend about 2-3 hour writing detailed sub plans and making sure everything is laid out, organized, and easy to understand. After all of that, I will still have the guilt of leaving my students with someone I don’t know and disappointing them by not being there. However, after all of the back and forth, and debates with myself I decided to take off (just the morning).
The morning of
I made all of my plans, got a half day sub, and woke up Thursday morning to a two-year-old covered in puke. All I thought in that moment is, THIS is real life (and then I proceeded to tell myself to NOT freak out)! After some major deep breaths, and some reassurance from my husband I started to make new plans. Did I mention how hard change is for me?
Living in THIS moment
“Rolling with the punches” is not something that come naturally to me. Lately the main thing I have been focusing on is THIS moment, right now. When I start to get overwhelmed with things not going the way my mind planned on them going, I try to focus on the current moment. Even if this means telling myself to breathe. I remind myself that this moment in time is the only one that I can control. The past is done and over, and the future is going to change several times before we get there so I need to focus on this current situation.
I am realizing that one major reason I stress about change is that I am always looking into the future, but when I remind myself to stay present, I realize that I can adjust and adapt to make the future still work out, just maybe in a different way.
Readjusting!
So, this takes us back to Thursday morning. While in that moment (after taking several long, deep breathes) I started by apologizing to my daughter that I was going to miss her singing (she was very understanding, and gave me a private performance). Next, while I was bathing my son, I emailed my principal, and asked if he could talk to my sub about staying all day. I also made plans to run into school during my husband’s lunch break to show the sub what to do in the second part of the day. I texted the babysitter to update her about my toddler and got my two girls ready and off to school. Finally, while snuggling my sick baby I was able to start to relax.
Despite some texts and call from school about some lesson/ password confusion we had a pretty uneventful morning, and my baby was starting to feel much better. Then, just when I’m starting to think I can do this, my husband calls to tell me he is stuck at work and will not be able to come home. I had already promised my sub I was coming in so since we were feeling ok, I loaded my son in the car and went into school for a quick visit (during everyone’s lunch break so the classroom was empty). Of course, this was after some freaking out and major frustration. However, while I was driving home with a very happy toddler, I reminded myself that was all probably not necessary (too little too late), but I made a mental note to remind myself of this next time.
The punches strike again
The one thing that really kept me going this day was reminding myself that my parents were taking the kids for the night, and my husband and I were actually going out to nice dinner together. This hardly ever happens and we were both really looking forward to it (I know my big mistake was that I was only looking at the future). So as the day was going… at about 2 pm my husband showed up, and preceded to be sick the rest of the evening. No date night! Time to roll with those punches again, right?
Life goes on
This is life though! One minute I think I’m killing it! I have my homemade coffee, I did my kids hair, and we are out the door on time. Then, there are the days like this, and I have to once again remind myself of letting go of these crazy expectations I put on myself and my day. When all is said and done it is almost always not something I can control anyway.
So what did I do?
Well, after crying over a ruined night I pulled myself together and decided to something I would not have otherwise had time to do. I took down my Christmas wreath on the front door (I know it’s March) and decorated the front door wreath and the wreath above our fireplace with spring flowers. Even though my day was ever changing I at least felt that at the end of it I accomplished something.
Therefore, my main advice would be that when things seem to be falling apart all in a day ask yourself what little thing can you do to salvage even one little piece of it. What is one thing that might make you feel just a little bit better. Even if that is drinking a glass of wine and watching Netflix.
Therefore, my two goals for going into this spring are:
- Living in this moment
- Moving past the expectations I put on myself
Here comes the sun
Spring time means Flowers blooming, animals waking up, and to some this can feel like an awakening as well. Sometimes we don’t realize just how dark winter was until the spring sunshine arrives. Here in Ohio, we have not experienced a whole lot of sunshine lately (in fact we just had a two-hour delay from school due to icy roads), but it is coming! The spring sunshine will not only offer warmth to our skin and some much-needed vitamin D, but also a renewal to our passions and hope for brighter days. Knowing there are brighter days ahead makes it much easier to roll with all of those constant everyday punches.
Years from now my kids will not remember days falling apart, but they will remember my reactions to it.
REPEAT…
Years from now my kids will not remember days falling apart, but they will remember my reactions to it.