I feel like I got hit on the head with a large board that reads: THIS IS YOUR LIFE. If my life were a cartoon, little animated stars would have swirled around for a few seconds and then I would have shaken myself straight and seen clearly. For the first time. Ever.
Let me try to explain it again.
My entire existence from the time I can remember has been
about accomplishments. And I have to
say, this isn’t because my parents were those crazy-competitive-ballpark
parents. They totally weren’t. This is something innate. Before I could do much of anything, I already
forced my mother to make me a schedule to follow so I could be sure I was doing
what I was supposed to be doing. Anyone
who knows my mom knows for certain the scheduling wasn’t her idea. It’s a trait (almost a sickness sometimes) I was
born with. I like to be able to check
off boxes and scratch off things on my to-do list. I like to win, to achieve, to succeed. This is true on both a big abstract scale and
on a mundane day-to-day scale. Sometimes
in my life it has been a great force – graduated college and law school in a
total of 6 years with a 4.0 in undergrad and an A-average in law school and I’ve
pretty much driven my own career since then.
I’m good. I’m not bragging, I just
work really hard to be good and I don’t generally do things I’m not good at.
Not only do I like to achieve, but I go so far as to self-impose
a sort of delayed gratification until I get all my boxes checked. For instance, I had as much fun as the next
gal in college, but it wasn’t until homework and studying were done and my
apartment was clean. Work hard, play hard. Again, not a bad way to live. Even now, it’s sort of a family joke that I wait
(and expect everyone else to wait) to have dessert until every dish is clean,
every person bathed, and all the beds are turned down. On most nights I don’t even sit down except
to eat and even then I’m thinking ahead to who is going to bathe the girls,
load the dishwasher, let the dogs out, and lay out clothes for the next day,
not to mention mulling over my work and other extra-curricular obligations for the
coming day. I think we can all agree ambition
and drive are good traits to possess in settings like education and career. But when it starts creeping into your
mothering, you just might have to get hit in the head with a theoretical
board.
Sure, I’ve always got one eye on my sweet family but the
other eye is where it always has been, on the prize.
Then, a few weeks ago, in one of my lowest mommy-moments to
date, that big board came smashing down on my head to reveal the ugly truth
about myself –I don’t even know what the prize is anymore. I was striving for something that I could not
even identify, much less obtain. And in
the meantime, I was letting my life pass me by.
To be more precise, I didn’t realize that I had the prize
right in front of me – it was my two beautiful girls and my dear husband. And I was so busy looking ahead, plotting,
planning, and trying to “achieve” that I was letting the real prize pass me by.
So I’m trying to slow down and enjoy my life, instead of
waiting for my life to start after some arbitrary list of to-dos are done. I’m trying to remind myself each day that
those to-dos are my life. Baths aren’t
something I have to get out of the way, they are memories ready to be made; letting
Pumpkin help me unload the dishwasher, ice the cookies, cook dinner, you name
it, might take twice as long, but it teaches her and gives us moments together
that we will both (hopefully) miss one day.
Not only that, but let’s be honest – the chores will never
be done. There will always be work,
laundry, dishes, and the list goes on and on.
They will be there today, they will be there tomorrow, they will still
be there in 20 years when the girls are grown and the house is quiet. Whether I do them now or in 15 minutes or
even if I put them off an entire day doesn’t matter. They can just be so that I can just be.
Don’t get me wrong – I can be superwoman. I can do it all
and I can do it quickly and I can do it well and I can even do it backwards and
in high heels. But I just realize now
that I don’t have to and that doing it doesn’t matter at all if it isn’t done
with love. None of this is easy for me
to admit. I want everyone to look in
on my life and be impressed with all I that
I do. I want people to think I have it together
and my life is perfect. I want to do
everything for everyone so they will love me, like me, need me, whatever. I don’t honestly know. What I do know is that it’s hard to write
these words but they needed to be written.
I knew they did from that moment, that horrible moment, when I acted in
such a way that my actions actually caused my sweet Pumpkin to look at me with eyes
that told me she felt unimportant and maybe even fearful of my impatience. I never want to see that look in her eyes
again. And I have to admit I’ve seen it
in the eyes of others who I love, who are close to me, and who I take for
granted. I don’t want any of them to
feel that way anymore.
Even though the sting of that moment has passed, I continue
to have phantom pains from it when I catch myself going back to my old ways. Last night I walked in on the scene you see
above and my first thought was of the mess that had been created by Pumpkin
feeding her sister. I almost missed the
beauty, the joy, and the love that this picture really shows. I was worried about wiping up sweet potato
puree. It wasn’t going anywhere and it
wasn’t hurting anything. It brought
tears to my eyes, not just because it was the sweet love of a doting big sister
towards an adoring baby sister, but because I ALMOST DIDN’T SEE IT. Then, as I was smarting from that painful reminder,
this morning Pumpkin was walking to the car with her thumbs hitched into her
backpack straps and as soon as we stepped outside she started singing “her and
Pop Pop’s song” which goes like this: “The sun is up, it’s a beautiful day,
Dear Aly, won’t you come out and play.”
[The song is actually Dear Prudence by the Beatles, but this is “their”
version]. I wanted to scream, “yes, yes,
I’ll come out and play. It’s not a beautiful day, it’s gross and overcast and
it’s going to rain and it’s Monday and I’m tired because your sister is
teething but YES, I WILL PLAY BECAUSE YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL AND MY LIFE IS
BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE YOU.” I didn’t
scream it…but I wanted to; maybe I even should have.
The bottom line, I’ve realized is that in the end, I don’t
expect anyone on earth or in heaven will care very much about how many tasks I
got done in a day or in a lifetime. What
will matter is how much enjoyment and love were involved in those tasks. If I die with a sink full of dirty dishes and
a brief due, I bet nobody that matters will even know. But if I die with a family whose hearts are
full, the whole world will be a better place.
So now each night when I tuck in my babies, I don’t rush the bedtime
story to get back to folding towels or reading emails. I savor each reading of the same book over
and over, I enjoy watching Pumpkin “read” it from memory because we’ve read it
so many times, and if I get back to the couch and its full of clean laundry
waiting to be folded, I might just sit there and enjoy some quiet time with
Hubby (and dessert!).
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