Today was our first snow day of 2012. As a teacher, I look forward to snow days. Yes, come the end of May I will be cursing my cozy days at home when it's 85 degrees outside and a perfect day to play outside, but for now, I love it! As Celia, Charlie and I hop from one task to another today, I keep reflecting on our life. Since we've had children, it seems like time has sped up. My children are speeding their way to high school even though we've just taken our first step into elementary school. How does this happen? Where did my babies go? How can I slow things down?
Andy and I often talk about adopting more children, but today I realized maybe it's not more children I want (although it would be lovely!), maybe it's time to enjoy the two I have. For you see, I'm a scheduler. I used to think this was a good thing. A happy person is an involved person. My whole life I've heard, get involved, join things, make a difference. And now at almost 32 I am involved, I've joined things, we try to make a difference and I'm miserable. Between work and all our commitments, we have no time. Every moment is scheduled and functional. I'm always telling Celia and Charlie "hurry up" and "we have to go". Maybe it's time I take a lesson from our son and just stand still (which is very frustrating when you're trying to leave). By being so involved, are we teaching Celia and Charlie the lessons we really want them to learn? Is it really that important for me to keep going to school, for Celia and Charlie to be so involved and go to a private school? For us to strive for bigger and better even though that means more work and complication? Ultimately, through my involvement and busyness am I trying to prove my worth to God? Because while I know in my head this is futile, it's hard to change habits and patterns.
So, today, yes we are getting stuff done at home and spending time together but I am also thinking and praying about how I need to change. Is busy the answer, or is simplifying? In the end, I guess the answer lies in what brings peace to my soul, not what society tells me I need to be doing. The question is how do I change?
You're right; somehow it's easy to get caught up in everything we 'should' or 'could' be doing. I think it takes a conscious and dedicated (and constant!) effort to avoid being overbooked. It does for me anyway. Sometimes it seems like I haven't said 'yes' that much though but I'm completely overloaded! It's definitely something I have to work on all the time.
ReplyDeleteI am conflicted. I try to go out of my was to not schedule, stay flexible and always be prepared for what may come. I think it's partially because I relish my home time soooo much. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing life and other times I'm just happy. When I schedule too much in one week I often find that I get ill soon after. I think it's mainly because I cannot stand to lose control. I cannot stand being late. I cannot stand not feeling in charge. How sad is it that now as I look back even the volunteer work that I used to do there was always a way to place myself in an important position or to be first in line to complete my task. Now I don't even want to go to work even though that is not possible at this time. I would say be a little selfish with your time there is only so much you have before you're pushing daisies anyway. Do things with you'r kids that they will always remember. Like with my dad-he was the only one who would pull out the records and play them with us and my mom used to set up little snacks for us when we were playing outside "it's party time" which for my brothers just meant food, but for me it was my mom's way of having a tea party with me-without my brothers whining about it. :) Create the things Celia and Charlie will remember. They may be totally goofy to you, but you have no idea how important it will be to them.
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