Balance and martyrdom

For the last two months, I have been working 30 hours a week in a temporary position at a nonprofit. Mostly I've been a glorified intern, dropping off press releases, picking up brochures from the printer, filing, and spending lots of time updating the organization's events calendar. Lately I'm finally getting to do more of what I'm good at--writing, and there might be a more permanent, full time position for me down the road. But the adjustment from stay-at-home mom to working mom has been tough, even though I'm not full time. I'm exhausted all the time because there are so few pauses for me now. There weren't many when I was at home, either, but I did have naptime. Now I have about 45 minutes between work and picking up my son from school, and I'm often running errands then.

How do other moms do this and not feel terribly depleted all the time? And how do creative moms, who need time to write or act or paint, ever fit it in?

I feel out of balance.

Granted, I have to fight the tendency to spiral into martyrdom--doing more and more and taking care of myself less and less, all while passively aggressively lamenting how tired and stressed I am. My role model for parenting, my mom, perfected this when I was a child. Just recently, now that her kids are adults, she's coming out of that somewhat and setting boundaries and taking care of herself. But if I'm not paying attention, I start acting out this role--Selfless Martyr Who Sacrifices All for Her Family. And I need to stop.

But it's hard for me to tell where the role stops and the legitimate demands of being a working mom begin. It's hard to find some balance. I only have limited energy and time, and it fills up so quickly with chores and work and toddler demands that at the end of the day, I'm too exhausted to do anything but watch YouTube videos of cats and babies and go to sleep. Seriously.

And then I feel like my days and creative ideas are slipping away. That pieces of me are slipping away. And that frightens me. Life is starting to move so fast that if there isn't time for me for years, then I'll suddenly be 60, with quite a bit of my life and vitality behind me, and it will be too late.

The idea of "too late" really scares me.

I try to scurry and pick up the pieces whenever I can—my parents, for example, offered to take my son for a night this weekend, and we’ll have a luxurious afternoon, evening and morning to ourselves. I feel guilty about how much I’m looking forward to that (like it shows that I don’t love my son or enjoy his presence), but it does help me reset. It helps me remember—well, me.

And I’m getting better about grabbing moments for myself. I arrived 15 minutes early the other day to pick my son up from school, and instead of rushing in, I sat on a couch at the entrance. For 15 minutes. I probably could have done something other than scroll through Facebook during that time—like just breathe and look around—but still. I paused. Every pause helps me find those parts of myself that have scattered all around.

I can tell those pauses are vitally important in staying in touch with myself and not losing years to the madness of parenting. And setting limits is important too. I’m just still flailing as I figure that out. Maybe that’s OK. I’m new to this, after all.

Got to wobble a bit before you walk.