whitebutterfliesblog

It is Saturday morning. A day I have been looking forward to since last Sunday. Life has been on the high spin cycle for a while now and although I recognize I have been operating at a pace that is not sustainable and doesn’t feel good, my Wonder Woman suit does not allow me to stop.

My therapist had told me years ago that I am a self made woman. Nothing could be more true. However, my fierce strength, will and determination to create an abundant life leaves me exhausted. I am powerful and strong. I can do more than most are willing to do, want to do, or are able to do. But this strength and unwavering ability to hold it all together is my nemesis at the same time. Although my last blog post was about being masterful at being still, my body might not be moving, but my mind is going at the pace of a thousand thoroughbreds.

Today, I would love to say to my family, Mommy needs a time out. At the same time, it is one of the last weekends of summer and one of the first weekends we have had together, as a family, at home. Home. Where I love to be. My beautiful home. My home that has dog hair fluff balls drifting along our hardwood floors. My home that has sticky spots on our kitchen floor where one of the children spilled some sugary item but did not clean it up and now we have walked over it, on it and around it for weeks. My home that has plants to be watered, weeds to be pulled, and a laundry list of other “to-do’s” that don’t get done and pile up when Mommy takes a “time out”.

What would my ideal “time out” look like on a beautiful summer day without any of the “to-do’s” racing through my mind like a herd of buffalo? Yoga to start. Writing in my journal. Meditating. Massage. Pedicure. A hike. Alone. A clean house that I didn’t clean. Meals that I didn’t have to buy or prepare or clean up. Wandering mindlessly through stores with no time constraints and the sense that I can spend money rather than thinking that if I buy something, it will need to be returned from guilt over spending money that should be saved for a rainy day or my children’s education.

My day would include lying on my chaise lounge, reading my book. Feeling my skin warmed by the rays of the sun. After reading, I could take a nap. It would be lovely to conclude the day with a bath and a good movie. A movie that makes me smile on the inside rather than stressing me out or making me worry.

How will my day end up looking? I will spend my day busy. Busy focused on finding activities that will keep the kids entertained and engaged. Working on projects around the house that have gone undone for the past two months since we have been traveling. Doing errands. Spending some time outside. Walking the dog to make sure she is taken care of. Paying attention to the needs of the home, clients, work, Chris, Rosie, Toothless, the children or any others in my life. And although all of that still fills me up and makes me happy, it is not the same as filling my own cup so I can be sure that I am able to give more of myself in these moments with those that I love and adore.

It is all this busyness that I need to slow down or to take a shorter “time out” from to dig deep. To become more intentional about how it is I am spending my time i.e. my life. To figure a way to find more joy for me. To stop doing a job that leaves me empty and unfulfilled. To delegate more so life feels more like the adventure it should be rather than a constant chore. I need Wonder Woman to learn how to Do Less. I need Wonder Woman to put her strength and power into living my best life, not just a busy life.

 

Most of my time is spent contemplating, what is next? I felt like it was so simply laid out for me as a kid. You go to grade school, then high school, college, perhaps a Masters Degree, get married, and have kids.  Kindergarten was a big milestone. Losing teeth, learning to ride a bicycle, learning to read. Then later in grade school, starting to like boys, getting boobs, getting my first period. In junior high, first French kiss, first dates, new friends, greater freedom from Mom and Dad. Sweet sixteen, learning to drive a car, and the amazing freedom that driving a car provided. Off to college, living on my own, becoming 21. Out of college, living on my own for the first time. Figuring out, what am I going to do with my life?  Love lessons.  Then finding the man who I can’t imagine a minute without.  Inspiring each other to achieve our career aspirations and dreams. Getting our graduate degrees. Buying our first home. Creating two little amazing human beings.

My amazing little human beings are both now in school full time. Kindergarten and second grade.  Now what? I am 40 years old and I have been a stay-at-home Mom for the past four years.  I never had any intention of staying at home. It was an agonizing choice every single day. Give up the work I loved for the amazing human beings I loved more than I had ever imagined was possible. Create a new version of myself that wasn’t defined by how much money I earned or how much influence I had at the office. Leave my expensive brain on the shelf for the simplistic tasks of wiping butts, drying tears, holding hands, reading stories, and shaping the lives of the most important people I know.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I had no idea how hard being a parent is. I was a career person and a non-parent with lofty ideals of what my life would look like. I would be the hard-charging Mom who showed my daughter that she could have it all. She would have a career and a family and never look back. She would know that she too could earn her Masters and be successful and accomplished, with or without a man by her side. My son would marry a woman like me, confident, intelligent, self-made, accomplished. What I didn’t know, was that when you become a Mom, from the moment you are pregnant, you view life a lot differently. I didn’t know the amount of tears that would spill from my face when I handed my child over to someone else for the day. That they would be the one rocking them to sleep, wiping their tears, nurturing them and loving them, while I lay locked in an office somewhere, typing on a screen about matters that seemed so unimportant compared to holding my child. I also didn’t know how much I would feel like as an impostor as mother. I didn’t know that I would rock my baby for hours, not being able to console them, and feel like I was not cut out for this job. That maybe, just maybe, the person who had them all day, might have been better suited for this kind of thing than I was.

But fate stepped in. The decision wasn’t mine to make. I left my job for a new zip code that would provide a better life for my family. And, in my new zip code, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for the person I was in my old zip code. Paying a woman a high salary and giving her a high-ranking position is not too popular in these parts. It would cost me more to work than not to.

And now what? Do I try to reclaim the person I was four years ago?  I am not the same as I once was but I do know that I have a lot more to offer. I am more of a person now, than I was then. When I worked full-time, with two babies at daycare, I had no idea how much I was short-changing my children. Somehow you can ward off a crying baby, but you can’t ward off a demanding boss. They pay your salary which makes them the priority. My children were not my priority. They were really hard work that was sometimes really nice to hand off to someone else to deal with. They were just part of my multi tasking and having it “all”. I could juggle 100 balls at a time, at least that was what I wanted the world to think, and my children were just going to be part of the juggling act. I get it now though. I get it for a million small reasons and I get it for a million big reasons.

But what is next? How do I take the next step without it being so easily laid out and defined for me? How do I get to maintain what I have but gain back part of what I chose to let go of years ago?

My desire to blog stems from my journey and transformation into Motherhood.  As a little girl, I loved all the stereotypical “girl” things.  It was rare to find me without a Barbie Doll.  My favorite movies were Annie, Wizard of Oz, Sound of Music, and Gone with the Wind.  I am a true romantic at heart and love anything that involves singing and dancing.  I love crafting, gardening, cooking, and entertaining (even though I would never claim to be any kind of Martha Stewart and I am a clumsy follower of Pinterest).

But, I was raised by my Mother who is anything but girly and is the living definition of a feminist.  I was not allowed to be a cheerleader because I wasn’t going to cheer “some boy” on to do a sport.  I had to do the sport myself and let others cheer me on.  Granted, this sage advice has helped me become a strong, independent woman however, it felt like I was pushed into a world of taking on masculine traits that didn’t quite fit the core of who I am.

Sometimes I have wished that I was born in the 1930’s so by the time I became a Mother, I could fall into the “traditional” female or feminine role in the family.  It may have saved me a fair amount of money on college and a Masters Degree.  Maybe I wouldn’t have felt conflicted about “who” I am as a woman, wife and Mother.   Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I am a recovering “corporate” businesswoman, learning to reclaim my feminine side and soften the edges that formed as a businesswoman.  However, I would not have the wit and intellect to be the Mother I am today if I did not have the opportunity to receive the education I earned.

Growing up, I was asked, as all of us were, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”.  Responding, “a Mother” was a given.  Of course, you will grow up, get married (find your prince charming) and have (the most perfect) babies but what will you “BE”?!  And so that question sets the course for the rest of our lives.  It is defined and redefined almost daily.  Defined by how we choose to show up everyday to the people in our lives and redefined by how we hope to be an even better version of ourselves than we were the day before.  Defined by the circumstances that the world presents to us and redefined by how we choose to respond to the universe.

I consider myself, and all the women of my generation, to be white butterflies.  White because we represent beauty, innocence, peace, and purity.  Butterflies because we are continually transforming our roles and how we are defined by our parents, our spouses, our children and society as a whole.  We were born into an era where we were told we could “have it all” and could be a great Mother, wife, and business person while maintaining our sense of self and sanity.  Personally, I feel like we were handed a bill of goods.  As much as I am grateful to the woman before me, whose shoulders I stand on with my individual rights and freedoms as a woman, I am conflicted by what has transpired into an immense weight we now bear to be and do everything.  I am puzzled that we live in a country where we honor the family unit yet our government and businesses don’t provide maternity or paternity leaves that even compare to third world countries.  The hypocrisy that exists between Mothers who “work” and Mothers who “don’t work”.  Never have I met a Mother who is not working her ass off no matter whether it’s in the home or in some paid vocation.

So, perhaps, as I unearth my victories, joys, sorrows, challenges, triumphs, and defeats in the ever-evolving world of being a woman, you will read and write along with me.  I Trust that the Universe will guide me gently in my own experience and will guide my daughter and future generations toward a better way of having it all.