Sharing is Scary Sometimes...

Question: 

Is it really better for my children for me to be home with them until they start school, if I would prefer to be working?

Answers:

Yes, it's better.  How can you even consider outsourcing your most important job for most of your children's waking hours?

No, of course not, the longer you are out of the work force the greater the impact on your short and long-term financial stability, not to mention your confidence.

Yes, it's better.  Your children are only this young and precious for such a short amount of time.  Before you know it they will be grown, living half-way around the world, and you'll long for these days when you can take the opportunity to grow and nurture each other.

No, of course not, you're so unhappy being home, change is needed or you'll just grow more and more resentful and be less and less equipped to enjoy the time you share with your kids.

Yes, its' better.  Though they won't remember this, your children will miss you in the present and you will miss them, each day you have to leave to go to work.

No, of course not, any guilt you feel about leaving your children is grounded in anti-woman garbage you should have discarded of long ago.  Your partner works and you don't begrudge his desire to do so in any way shape or form.

--

My mom worked and I turned out just fine, but we also lived in a city with a large extended family.  Family affords the privilege of blurring boundaries to a certain extent, as it relates to childcare.  

....One question, so many answers, so many thoughts to flush out.

Important versus Unimportant

I spend a lot of time in my head.  Just now I was thinking about whether I should post more than one thing in a day, because that's not good blogging protocol.  You don't want to post everything at once right?  Because there will eventually be a moment when you can't or don't want to write something new.

...back to being in my head.  I think I get to a point sometimes when I've reached my capacity for acting in the way that is most responsible, especially to other folks.  I get lost in my head and waste away hours I should be using to do other things.  That's not particularly fair to my husband, children, friends, etc., but its a cycle I find myself repeating.

What I should be doing takes up so much room in my mind that I flee instead of fighting.  It feels and is experienced as selfish, but its my truth in the moment.

My goal is to be authentically me, the challenge is to be true to my desires without rejecting all obligations to others.  The trouble is so much of the time it feels as if I'm not a good enough mother, wife, entrepreneur, community member, sister, friend, daughter, etc. that when I'm actually not doing well at those jobs I find it hard to see where the tipping point was.

Specifically which obligations are important and which only seem as such?

A Younger Me

I was reading through an old blog I had right around the time I graduated from university.  It would be interesting to go back and have a conversation with that young woman.  I find her words and recollections endlessly interesting now, strangely enough I feel sort of detached from her.

Not because I don't find myself experiencing similar emotions, fears, challenges, etc., but because at this point the myopia of youth feels distant, though I'm as sure as I sit here that I will certainly think the same about thirty as I do about 21 or 22.

Though I wasn't sure what my voice was then, I hear a much stronger woman than I recollect.  Still I cringe at much that is written.  It's hard to believe such things once graced the crowded public wall of the internet.

I wonder what I will think of this blog nearly 10 years from now.

To take it back to something that lay buried in my memory until a few short hours ago.  I'll end like I ended posts way back then.

"Still living somewhere over the rainbow"

...though now I find myself still looking over my shoulder for the happiness police for some reason.
...thinking "but for God" at the same time as "but if God why?"(all the pain and suffering?)

Wondering

And I've been feeling the urge to write, though I'm not sure exactly what I want to say. I contemplate womanhood and motherhood often. I wonder about the things that make me feel strong and the things that make me feel weak.

I wonder where my confidence went.

I wonder if material comfort pacifies me.

I wonder if I am as lazy as I feel sometimes.

I wonder much more.

And I appreciate what I hear when I hear responses, even if it is primarily my echo bouncing back.

New Year

I think any time is a good time to reflect, but a new year beginning seems an especially good time to think about the year past and the year to come.

I don't remember what my resolutions for last year were.  I may or may not have accomplished some or all of what I intended.  I've written down my resolutions for this year in a safe place that I will hopefully be able to look at and reflect on throughout the year.

I know a couple of things are true though and I'll share those:
1) I am so grateful for my family.  And I hope that gratitude extends beyond words and platitudes into action that demonstrates how much I cherish my partner for life, my children, and all the whole of my family.

2) Excellence doesn't require perfection, it requires planning, practice, effort, a whole long list of things, but definitely not perfection.  So I'm trying to refocus on that...excelling beyond momentary setbacks, stumbles, failures, etc.

Day 1

Challenge

And when I breathe in and out
a new opportunity presents itself
to be the woman I intend to be.
The weight of that realization however
presses down hard on me
as I think about both those things I've left undone
AND the potential of those things yet to be done
if only I had the power within me to do them.

And I still don't know why failure still seems my foe,
as if those who are great only saw success.
How do I move?
How do I disrupt laziness, doubt, and fear?
Where does my strength hide
the moment after the moment
I see possibility.

What is my motivation?

Aloe Pope

And if I had another daughter tomorrow I might name her Aloe Pope.

Aloe for waking me up,

And Pope for reminding me of my voice,

No matter how unimportant to some, is essential to others.

Though I may be idealistic and overly self-reflective,

I push forward despite the denigrating gaze of false fathers (or mothers) pretending to care.

That she, the not me, me,

Might grow strong,

Courageous,

And knowledgeable of how well-loved she is.

That she, the personification of delight,

was created (again), through me.