You've seen it said a hundred different ways. A housewife, a housekeeper, stay at home mom, a domestic career woman, and my generation's pitfall: "I'm just a mom."
A dear friend of mine caught me saying this last week and was quick to remind me, "You aren't just anything. You are busy being a mom."
But I heard a term this week that I'm going to adopt. I read an article where a woman called her daughter-in-law a family builder.
Add that to my resume:
Family Builder. Job duration: forever.
I can handle that.
----
I feel like I am persistently exhausted.
I know what you are thinking. Hello, you're a mom. Welcome to the club.
But I have been persistently exhausted since about 2008. Most of the time I blame it on my own laziness, but behind that excuse is the ever present my-body-doesn't-function-properly excuse.
This week I realized I am letting these excuses get in the way. How did I come by this realization? I decided to wake my baby up from her nap (wake a sleeping baby? that's a major no no!), plunk her in her stroller, and walk 45 minutes just to go to a religion class across town.
And it was worth every step.
When I got home, I realized that I am letting "too" many excuses about my body get in the way of doing things that are good for my mind and my family. I tend to use that word "too" too much. For example:
I'm too tired. The baby is too cranky. The house is too messy. We are too poor. It costs too much money. It's too much time. It's too much effort. I'm too overwhelmed.
You get the picture.
If I take the "too" out if it, these things magically stop being excuses and start becoming statements.
I'm tired. The baby is cranky. The house is messy. We are poor. It costs money. It takes time. It takes effort. I'm overwhelmed.
Statements are easily debatable. I'm a pretty good debater. I need to stop talking myself out of things and start talking myself into them.
I can handle this.
-----
The Future.
Dun dun dun.
As an adjective, it means "to come; expected." As a noun, it means something along the lines of "fate" or "luck." Right now, in the Fowler household, it means "the great unknown."
This phrase has become a frequent term around our home as we look toward the coming months when my husband will finish his degree and get a career job. There are so many questions that surround this "expected fate" that we can't dwell on it too long or it makes us both want to barf. I think back to my days of high school journalism and the inverted pyramid of finding answers: who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Who will he be working for? What kind of job will it be--will he like it, will it pay well? When will we find the right one? Where on earth will it be? Why does the thought of moving terrify and excite me at the same time? How are we going to make ends meet in the meantime if we have to pay for a move, an extra car, Cobra insurance?
Each of these questions has a dozen follow-up questions and I don't know the answers to any of them. I have this gut feeling that everything will work out--and this feeling in my heart that nothing is going to work out the way that we expect it to--and then my mind goes into overdrive with wonder and anticipation. I see each thought, each question, each wonder pile up on my husband's shoulders as the stress increases and the weight becomes visible and I think, "It's just too much."
And then I take out the "just."
And I take out the "too."
And I think, "it's much."
Yes, it's much. But much we can do. Much we have done.Much we will do. Much we can tackle.
We can handle this.
No comments:
Post a Comment