From Frantic to Fulfilled

People keep asking me how I am doing with the adjustment, not only to motherhood, but to being home full time.  "What on earth do you do with all that time?" they ask, sometimes with jealousy, sometimes with a hint of patronization in their voice.  I will be the first to admit that this new stage of life is vastly different than the past 10+ years of my life.  I have been reflecting back on those years and realizing that since about middle school, I haven't had more than a few days at a time where I didn't feel "busy busy busy" all the time.  It seemed I was always juggling sports, music, school, church, a job, social life, and family time.  In fact, I have a very clear memory of a teenage breakdown, where I sobbed one night to my parents that I just could not possibly do it all! I was 16 and had a part-time job, was the Sophomore Class President, was enrolled in AP European History and several other demanding classes, I was involved in community theater, choir, and was on the high school soccer team with practice every day and games every other, I was in my Young Women Class Presidency and still wanted to hang out with my friends every night.  If only I could have told my 16-year-old self to buck up and learn to prioritize.  I then would have shown her just how swamped I would be in the coming years of college, yet still managing to juggle the load by putting God first, working hard and letting the non-essentials fall from my life.

But that was a different time.  Now, I am home full-time, mothering a beautiful babe who sleeps soundly while I use blogging as my outlet.  Yes, the pace of life is much slower.  Yes, I do have time for hobbies and leisure reading that I couldn't even dream about just 6 months ago.  Yes, I do sleep in as long as my baby lets me (we've only made it past 7 a handful of times) and every once in a while I even take a nap with her in the afternoons!

At first I wasn't sure what to do with the change of speed.  It was like traveling a swift 75 mph on the freeway for hours and hours, exiting and suddenly feeling as if you are painfully crawling along at the posted 30 mph speed limit.  I had been so used to frantically dashing from one commitment to another, that I hardly knew what to do with myself.  And the worst part was feeling like perhaps I was now unimportant because my "To Do" list could now fit on a couple of lines, rather than filling an entire sheet of paper.  Was I still of worth even if I no longer wrote extensive research papers or taught my students to examine truth?  Could I feel like I was contributing to our family when I no longer added dollars to our income or educational merits to my resume?  I weighed it out and decided that nurturing my daughter's spiritual, mental, emotional and physical well-being was more important to me than a masters degree, a teaching career or the extra income.

But knowing it was the right thing to do didn't make the decision easy. I felt like people were judging me for staying at home.  Like I couldn't hack it in the "real world" or that I wasn't intelligent enough to get a teaching job, so I opted instead to choose the "simpler" route of staying at home to raise my baby.  However, I am realizing that I was the only one paranoid about other people's perceptions of me.  I wanted to still be considered an intelligent, capable woman, and I was afraid that if people didn't know I had a degree and had chosen to stay at home, then they would think I didn't have anything to contribute to the conversation or the world at large.  I knew I had made the right decision to be here with Daphne, but I still wanted to feel important and capable - like the things I did in my day to day mattered.

I have come to realize that I had been programmed by the world to think that frantic = important, busy = success, career = meaningful contributions.  I am discovering that though my life is more simple and less full of of tasks to achieve, it is, in reality, more full.  The more Daphne grows and learns, the more fulfilled I feel.  The more time I spend immersing myself in the scriptures, the more spiritually uplifted I feel.  The more I try to think about how to spend my days serving my family, neighbors and friends, the more charitable I feel.  The more I use my free time to journal/blog, exercise, read good literature and develop new talents, the more improved I feel.  Now that I have come to accept the differences in how I valued myself then and now, I am loving this stage of young motherhood.  I feel like I am finally able to focus on improving myself and my family and I actually feel like I am gaining ground.  I love the joy that Daphne and Burke bring me and the accomplishment I feel at taking the best possible care of my daughter.

I realize that a couple of years down the road when we have more children, are involved with their schooling and have more demanding callings, that life will not be as peaceful and relaxed as it is now, but that is why I am choosing to enjoy every day that I get to experience this chapter in my life.  I hope you are all enjoying your journey as well!

*P.S. This post in no way is meant to be offensive to mothers who have chosen to pursue their careers.  I know that we all have different personalities and situations, leading to different familial decisions.  Please know that I am simply writing about the experience I have had coming to be happy and comfortable with the decisions that were best for my little family.  I hope that is the message that came across and not any sort of condescension towards others choices.  Phew - okay, just had to get that out there!