***Yesterday at work, I watched a young mom. She had three little kids, two in a double stroller and one older one who kept running away from her. As I watched her try to navigate the 600's, keep the preschooler from pulling books off the shelf, find the littlest one's binki, and encourage the middle one to please sit down in the stroller no you can't get out I'm almost finished just a few more minutes, I realized a truth about my life that I am finally starting to see: I am grateful to be where I am.
This took me a long time, making peace with the fact that there will be no more babies. I loved that time in my life with a fierce intensity. I loved it, yet I was also just so tired during those years. I wouldn't change a day of it but I also haven't forgotten that it was not all sweet babies and snuggling. It was hard. So I am also loving this time in my life, which of course has its own hard things. But I also have more freedom, more solitude, and more flexibility—exactly the things I longed for when I was a young mom with three babies only four years apart. Part of my making-peace process is my conscious acknowledgement of appreciating the freedom and the flexibility and especially the solitude.
I read on a friend's facebook page this morning a thought that I have pondered all day today: "Depression is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of trying to remain strong for too long." This thought resonates with me on several levels, the bloggy one being this: solitude and quiet help me remain strong for longer. While I've always believed in the restorative power of a day to yourself, I've not always had the luxury of actually having a day. Now that I do have them here and there, I try to keep in mind that young mother I used to be. Spending a day lazing about is a way of paying homage to her, of telling her thank you for being strong for so long and for getting me to this place in my life when I can look at the mom of three young babies and not feel envious anymore.
Today I did just that. I did have a frantic sort of morning, where Nathan had an essay he needed me to proofread for him before school, and Haley had a biotech project that wasn't printing correctly. I drove the carpool, stopped by the copy store, took the biotech project to Haley, got gas in the van and stopped by the post office. But after that (aside from being hideously embarrassed by my carpool duties clashing with my promise to pick up my friend Wendy from the hospital), I didn't do much. I wrote for awhile. I made two scrapbook layouts. I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 and bawled my eyes out from the time they go back to Hogwarts to the closing credits. I helped Nathan with his spelling and then I laid on the couch and tried to finish my book while Kaleb sat next to me also reading. (I'm trying to transition him into reading on his own; this is not going smoothly.) I made tacos for dinner.
And even though I can't help but feel guilty for not also doing a load of laundry, cleaning out a closet or organizing a shelf or two, or even doing the checkbook (that deep-down, unavoidable guilt), I also feel a great sense of peacefulness tonight. That deep-down guilt tells me that I should feel ashamed and weak because of my need for occasional lazy days, but I try not to listen to it. I try to remember that, weakness or no, I need the lazy days. They help me to continue on trying to be strong. And I love and appreciate that my life is giving them to me right now.
***sidenote: I didn't leave that young mom to fend for herself. After my little epiphany I hustled over to help her find what she was looking for: a Pilates book. She apologized for her kids and I assured her that they were fine and she was doing a great job.
And as a young mother who tries to take her 2 rambunctious boys to the library (or out in public period) it is such a blessing when another mother stops to help and gives you a little reassurance that you're doing ok. So Thank you.
And you deserve a lazy day, no guilt attached.
Posted by: Andrea | Thursday, February 09, 2012 at 07:23 AM